if you wanna be happy... get an ugly girl to marry you

Question

Ok my spanish is real bad but this songs been in my head all day so I thought I'd give it a shot and try to translate part of it. There seem to be many different possibilities of different translations, but this is what I came up with. I really wanted to try and keep the rhyme, but I was mostly unable to do so. Sorry in advance for the butchery...

This is an oldies song by Jimmy Soul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svt06ZJHieo Some lines i posted multiple possibilities as I wasn't sure what would be best. Words in parenthesis (|) means I couldn't decide on the best word.

1 If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life

2 Never make a pretty women your wife

3 Go for my personal point of view

4 Get an ugly girl to marry you

1 Si (quiere | desea) pasar una vida feliz

o

1 Si quiere estar (contento | feliz) para toda su vida

2 Nunca hacer una mujer bonita tu novia

3 Toma mi punto de vista personal

4 Y encuentra una chica feo a casarte

Are these translations proper, or not even close?

Answer 1

They are close, cheesei, let's see if somebody can have a look

Answer 2

Nunca hacer una mujer bonita tu novia

I believe that: novia would be girlfriend and esposa would be wife

I could be wrong, but wouldn't you need to phrase it

No hacer nunca...

and I think that you need to use por

...por su esposa

and I believe that it might be better said with tomar rather than hacer

All said I think that it might be

No tomar nunca una mujer bonita por tu esposa

Si quiere estar (contento | feliz) por toda su vida

I think that por is the correct choice here

Toma mi punto de vista personal

I am not sure if this mi punto de vista personal translates as an expression, but you might try:

tomar consejo de mio (literally take my advice)

Y encuentra una chica feo a casarte

This might be said

Y casarse con una chica fea

So the whole thing might be

Si quiere estar (contento | feliz) por toda su vida

No tomar nunca una mujer bonita por tu esposa

tomar consejo de mio

Y casarse con una chica fea

Before taking this as your answer, you might want to see what a native speaker has to say about this.

• thanks, im glad esposa still ends with "a" so it can keep the rhyme with the previous lines "vida" - cheeseisyumm Aug 30, 2009

Answer 3

edit

that sounds better Izanoni1, thanks!

Answer 4

no matter which verb you use, you need to conjugate it (imperative mood)

no hagas (informal) o no haga formal)

no tomes o no tome

the infinitive sounds nice (poetic license) here, but you conjugate the verb in the next line 3 (toma) so use no tomes (o no hagas) in line 2

Answer 5

Jesus, my post got lost!!!

WEll, let me try to remember:

Si quieres estar feliz toda la vida

no te cases con una mujer bonita

de mi punto de vista personal haz caso

y busca una mujer fea para el matrimonio.

• Couldn't find a better rhyme for the last two lines:( - Heidita Aug 30, 2009
• Looks better than mine - Izanoni1 Aug 30, 2009