La albañil mira el azulejo roto.

Because albañil is a common-gender noun: the noun itself stays the same, and the article shows whether the person is male or female.

• el albañil = a male bricklayer / builder
• la albañil = a female bricklayer / builder

So in this sentence, la tells you the worker is female. Spanish does this with many job nouns.

They are the definite articles, meaning the.

• la albañil = the female bricklayer
• el azulejo = the tile

Spanish uses articles more often than English does. Here they sound natural because we are talking about a specific worker and a specific tile.

Also, with professions, Spanish often uses an article when the profession is the subject of the sentence:

• La albañil mira...

But after ser, Spanish often leaves the article out:

• Es albañil. = She is a bricklayer.

Because mirar and ver are not exactly the same.

• mirar = to look at, to direct your eyes toward something
• ver = to see, to perceive with your eyes

So La albañil mira el azulejo roto means the bricklayer is looking at the broken tile.

If you said ve, the meaning would shift more toward sees rather than looks at.

In Spanish, the simple present often covers what English expresses with both:

• looks at
• is looking at

So mira can naturally mean looks at or is looking at, depending on context.

If you say está mirando, you are putting extra focus on the action being in progress right now.

So both are possible, but mira is very normal and natural.

Because roto agrees with azulejo, not with albañil.

• azulejo is masculine singular
• so the adjective must also be masculine singular: roto

This is standard Spanish adjective agreement.

Compare:

• el azulejo roto = the broken tile
• la baldosa rota = the broken floor tile

Even though la albañil is feminine, roto is describing the tile, not the worker.

Because in Spanish, descriptive adjectives often come after the noun.

So:

• el azulejo roto = the broken tile

That is the normal, neutral order.

If you put the adjective before the noun, it often sounds more literary, emotional, or marked:

• el roto azulejo

That would not be the usual choice here.

Yes, but the original order is the most neutral:

• La albañil mira el azulejo roto.

This is a standard subject + verb + object order.

Spanish allows more flexibility than English, so you could hear other orders in certain contexts, for example to emphasize something:

• El azulejo roto lo mira la albañil.

But that sounds more marked and less basic. For a learner, the original sentence is the best default pattern.

A rough pronunciation is:

la al-ba-ÑIL MI-ra el a-thu-LE-ho RO-to

A few important points for Spain:

• ñ in albañil sounds like ny in canyon
• z in azulejo is pronounced like th in think
• j in azulejo is a strong throat sound, similar to the ch in Scottish loch or German Bach
• r in roto is a light tapped r, not an English r

A more phonetic version for Peninsular Spanish would be: [la alβaˈɲil ˈmiɾa el aθuˈlexo ˈroto]

It most literally means bricklayer or mason, but in real usage it can sometimes be understood more broadly as a construction worker or someone who does building work, depending on context.

So the exact English translation can vary a bit:

• bricklayer
• builder
• construction worker

In Spain, context usually tells you how specific the meaning is meant to be.