andarse en los ojos

Question

Would the following phrase:

andarse en los ojos

mean:

lose oneself in another's eyes

or

me ando en los ojos

I got lost in his/her eyes

I was curious if andar was being used, in this case, to imply a wandering (i.e. a loss of sense of direction)

Answer 1

The sentence doesn't mean "lose oneself in another's eyes" or "I got lost in his/her eyes" at all.

Initially, I assumed that "andarse en los ojos" was an idiomatic expression, but it is not. It is just the verb "Andar(se)" meaning to poke, to rummage,... and the eyes part is just a sentence to illustrate its use.

Encontré a uno andando en el cajón. = I found one rummaging around the drawer.

No es bueno andarse en los ojos. = It is not good to poke yourself in your eye.

No te andes en la nariz. = Don't poke your nose.

No te andes en la oreja. = Don't poke your ear.

You said ""nariz" but translated it as "ear". - Nick-Cortina, AGO 27, 2009

We'll change that one for him. - 0074b507, AGO 27, 2009

Haha - you and your editing power. :-P - Nick-Cortina, AGO 27, 2009

Thanks for the answer; when it was listed as a colq. expression I thought that it was an idiomatic expression as well. Thanks for the help - Izanoni1, AGO 27, 2009

Answer 2

Hi Izan, I cannot answer this without context, if it is an expression, I am not familiar with it. Please always write the whole sentence.

I do not have much context that I can share with you on this one. I found this [removed]andarse en los ojos) in the dictionary (Pequeño Larousse ilustrado. 1982). It was preceded by the following:

Con diferentes preposiciones, tiene sentidos muy diversos

I took this to mean that

it (andar) has many diverse meanings (when used) with different prepositions

In this example, the preposition en was used.

I looked in the RAE and there was a similar expression:

coloq. Poner o meter las manos o los dedos en algo. Encontré al uno andando EN el cajón y al otro EN los papeles. U. t. c. prnl. No es bueno andarse EN los ojos

I wasn't sure what the U.t.c. prnl stood for, but I found it in another forum and apparently it stands for Usado también como pronominal or also used like a pronomial (i.e. to serve the purpose of a pronoun). I assumed that this was because there was also no reflexive form of the verb (i.e. andarse) listed as a separate entry in either my dictionary or within the RAE.

I took the first part of this Poner o meter las manos o los dedos en algo to roughly translate to either to lay hold of something or to put ones hands to something/to use one hands for something (i.e. for some use), and in this context I thought that No es bueno andarse EN los ojos might be better translated to mean something like it is not good to walk around with your eyes closed or possibly it is not good to walk around with blinders on (similar to an English expression).

Anyhow, as you can see, I have not been able to wrap my head around this one. In fact, I think that I might be even more confused now than before I tried to answer your question regarding the context that this expression was used with.

I have provided everything that I have found regarding this phrase along with my (somewhat garbled) reasoning as to what this phrase might mean, and hopefully you might be able to make a little more sense of it than I was able to.

Answer 3

I am trying to get Lazarus over here, Izan, I have asked friends and they are not familiar with the expression either.

Answer 4

Hi Izan, I cannot answer this without context, if it is an expression, I am not familiar with it. Please always write the whole sentence.

Answer 5

It seems that way, doesn't it, and it seems that using Andar in this way would be the best translation for this sentence even though Andar literally translates to walk or to stroll.