1

I'm translating this song to English. The lyrics include the following line:

Cómo olvidar tu mirada

It seems to me that "mirada" is a word that is hard to translate to English, making it accurate.

"Look", "glance", or "gaze" simply don't feel right. "Gaze" doesn't seem to have the same "romantic" power I'd say, and doesn't look/sound good. For lack of a better translation, I'd translate the line to

How could I forget your eyes

But I'm interested to know what do you think would be the translation here and how would you explain the word "mirada" in English.

1
  • 1
    I'd go for "your eyes" as suggested or "the look in your eyes".
    – Gustavson
    Dec 4, 2018 at 2:16

3 Answers 3

3

You can't translate the word because it isn't the same in English, but I would say

How could I forget the look in your eyes.

I think it sounds more similar to the sentence in Spanish

2

Sorry, I don't understand why you tend to discard the words that I think that are fittest. Gaze seems a good choice to me.

According to the D.R.A.E

mirada

  1. f. Acción y efecto de mirar. [Action related to the verb to look at]

  2. f. Vistazo, ojeada.

  3. f. Modo de mirar, expresión de los ojos. [How you look at something or someone]

There's nothing explicitly romantic in the definition.

According to vocabulary.com

When someone lays eyes on you and keeps looking, it is a gaze or a stare

Gaze is both a verb and a noun. When people daydream, they often gaze off into the distance without focusing on anything. Another type of gaze, though, is to look very intently at something, as when you gaze at the sky making pictures out of clouds

And according to the Cambridge Dictionary

gaze [verb]

to look at something or someone for a long time, especially in surprise or admiration, or because you are thinking about something else.

As I understand it, gaze as noun represents the action of the verb to gaze.

So

Cómo olvidar tu mirada

is usually understood in a poetic or romantic sense as

Cómo olvidar cómo me mirabas intensamente con los ojos llenos de amor

Which we can translate to English as

How could I forget your gaze

meaning

How could I forget how you gaze at me so intensily and full of love

Notice that both suggested explanations, in Spanish and in English, are not explicitly set in the original sentence. The author leaves to the audience freedom to imagine what he really meant just with tu mirada / your gaze, because it can also mean in both languages that the speaker liked how the eyes of her loved one looked when she was daydreaming.

Your eyes or the look in your eyes does not reflect the original phrase [explicit] but your interpretation [implicit]. It's not a translation, it's an explanation.

0

Mirada is "the way someone looks at something/someone". It's like saying "I miss the look in your eyes". At least in Argentina.

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