“Un Patito” (Little Duckling) is a simple children’s song in Spanish, which makes it a good place to start brushing up on your Spanish. One of my special childhood memories is of my mother singing “Un Patito” to me, of us singing it together, of singing it with my sister, at many different times and places. Even as an adult, I find myself singing it from time to time, when there are no children around, simply because it’s a happy thing to do.
Lyrics of “El Duckling” in Spanish:
Lyrics of “A Duckling”:
1. I have a duckling
2. That my mom bought me
3. He knows how to sing, he knows how to dance
4. And when the sun goes down
5. The sad duckling is
6. Don’t come
7. And the poor thing will get sick
Note: In line 7, my mother always replaced “will get sick” with the fatal “will die” from the original song; (which means to die).
Here’s a close general translation:
The general Spanish to English translation is made to sound like a native English speaker, to give you an idea of the feeling, the mood, the meaning of the original piece. Some translations are made to sound poetic in the second language, with an end result that can vary greatly from the original. This translation is very close to Spanish.
Lyrics of “The Duckling”:
1. I have a duckling
2. That my mother bought me.
3. He knows how to sing and he knows how to dance.
4. When the sun goes down,
5. The duckling gets sad.
6. He loses his appetite, he no longer eats,
7. And the poor thing gets sick.
Here is the word-for-word translation:
A word-for-word translation sounds terrible, because the way we express ourselves in different languages varies. However, it is a worthwhile exercise if you want to learn the structure and expression of sentences in Spanish. Practicing this type of exercise will help you when you want to translate something backwards; from English to Spanish.
Letter [lyrics] of [of] “TO [one] duckling [duckling]”:
1 one [one] duckling [duckling] I have [have] I [I]
2 What [which] half [my] mother [mother] me [for me] understand [bought]
3. knows [it knows] sing [to sing], know [it knows] bail [to dance],
4.and [And] when [when] to [itself] put [puts] he [the] floor [sun]
5. The [the] duckling [duckling] sad [sad] is [is]
6.No [no] as[eat] already[anymore]
7.and [and] he [the] poor [poor little one] to [itself]will get sick [becomes sick]
To truly enjoy the Spanish children’s song “Un Patito”, you would have to listen to it in my mother’s happy singing voice. However, I hope these lyrics and translations are useful to improve your command of Spanish.
