Great question!
BUSCAR
So if my child was looking for their blanket, I could say, “Let’s find your blanket,” or, “Let’s look for your blanket,” or, “Let’s search for your blanket,” in English.
Here is that phrase in Spanish that carries all those meanings:
Vamos a buscar tu cobija.
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Now, if my child asked what a word meant and I didn’t know what it meant, I would want to look it up in the dictionary. We want to “look for” the word or “find” it!
Here’s, “Let’s look it up!” in Spanish. Note, “it” is referring to “the word.”
Vamos a buscarla.
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MIRAR
In English, you know that “Look it up,” and “Look up,” have two different meanings, right?
In Spanish, to say, “Look up!” you say:
“Mira para arriba.”
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“¡Mira!” is used when you want one person to look in that direction.
It’s like what every child yells when they want you to see them do something that they think is very cool. Like yelling, “¡Mira!” before they jump off the swing or yelling, “¡Mira!” before they ride their bike past you.
Here is how to pronounce “¡Mira!”
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You can also use “mira” with a noun to ask something to look at something specific.
Here are a couple of examples.
“Look at the balloons,” is:
Mira los globos.
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“Look at that beautiful rainbow,” is:
Mira el hermoso arco iris.Audio Player
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As you go through the Spanish TalkBox.Mom program, you’ll see more and more examples of “mirar” and “buscar” being used and you’ll start to understand them in the context that a native speaker does as you use those phrases.
Gracias para tu ayuda