Mirar a los ojos is a tricky Spanish expression
which means Look in the eye. They are both very similar, but you must be
careful when using it, because in English eye
is singular, but in Spanish ojos is a
plural. Let’s see an example:
Tú le estabas mirando a los ojos
/ They were looking in the eye
You cannot say:
Tú le estabas mirando al ojo
Because that
not makes any sense and people will probably start laughing.
How to construct it
(Subject) + Personal Complement +
Conjugated Verb + a los ojos
The subject is in brackets since you can omit
it, if you feel like it. Personal complements depends on the person whose eyes
are being looked and they are: me – te – le/se – nos – os – les/se; as you can
see there are two options for the 3rd person: you have to use always
le or les unless the person who is being looked is also looking to the
person who is looking at it. Examples:
Él le miraba a los
ojos – a person A is looking to another person B.
Él se miraba a los ojos – a person A is looking to his own eyes
(A looks A).
Ellos les miran a los ojos – one group A is looking to other
group B’s eyes.
Ellos se miran a los ojos – there are two groups of people A
and B and they are looking ones to the others.
After reading this two last examples, you may
say that it is almost impossible to look someone in the eye who is not looking
you back in the eye, but in Spanish is important to know who had the idea to
look into the other’s eyes.
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