Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Mexican B-day song does not go "Feliz cumpleaños a tí"

There have been a lot of birthdays this month and after having sung it perhaps 15 times, I think I´ll master the Mexican birthday song by the time my birthday rolls around. I swear I´m not pathetic - it´s ridiculously hard - for a second-language learner anyway. Here goes:

Estas son las mañanitas
Que cantaba el rey David
A las muchachas bonitas
Y te las cantamos aquí

Despierta mi bien despierta
Mira que ya amaneció
Ya los pajarillos cantan
La luna ya se metió

This is the morning song
That King David sang
To the beautiful girls
And we sing here today

Wake up, my dear, wake up,
Look it is already dawn
The birds are already singing
And the moon has set.

Since I´m sure you´ll want to sing this song at home - I´ve selected my favorite Youtube clip with the tune. This clip beat the other several thousand because:
- It is the cheesiest.
- It has mariachis.
- It has pictures of dawn, people kissing, flowers and both the U.S. and Mexican flags, in other words, everything you´d ever want in your birthday Youtube clip.



Here´s another handy song to know - the Piñata song!

Dale, dale, dale.
No pierdas el tino.
Porque si lo pierdes.
Pierdes el camino.

Ya le diste una.
Ya le diste dos.
Ya le diste tres.
Y tu tiempo se acabó.

(Hit it, hit it, hit it. Don’t loose your aim. Because if you lose it, you lose the way.You hit it once. You hit it twice. You hit it three times. And your time is up.)

This video basically sucks, but I couldn´t find one better either because the kid had whacked the piñata down within the first few "Dales" or everyone seemed drunk.

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