pozos de ventilación

English translation: air shafts

10:34 Nov 18, 2006

Spanish to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature

Spanish term or phrase: pozos de ventilación

This is from "La Biblioteca de Babel" by Jorges Luis Borges
"El universo (que otros llaman la Biblioteca) se componte de un número indefinido, y tal vez infinito, de galerías hexagonales, con vastos pozos de ventilación en el medio, cercados por barandas bajísimas."
The standard translation by James E Irby translates it as an "air shaft". I translate from Italian to English and I have a piece of art criticism where the author quotes from an Italian translation of this piece from Borges. This author then takes the word "pozzo" in Italian which is used much more for a well in Italian rather than for a shaft. The author talks in Italian of a "pozzo di luce" which is a flood of light in Italian and not a "shaft of light". Anyway I'm having problems, can anybody elucidate the Spanish for me please?

James (Jim) Davis KudoZ activity Questions: 207 (none open) (3 without valid answers) (21 closed without grading) Answers: 8929 Seychelles
Local time: 04:09

English translation:air shafts

Explanation:
I'm fairly certain the shafts/wells in question are indeed vertical. The story continues, "desde cualquier hexágono, se ven los pisos inferiores y superiores..." I presume the airshafts connect higher and lower floors. This justifies the word "pozo" in Spanish, but an air well simply doesn't sound natural in English.

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Note added at 1 hr (2006-11-18 12:04:32 GMT)
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On second thought, I think "ventilation shaft" is also a good translation, and maybe more closely approximates the tone of the story.

Selected response from:

Lisa Camastro (X)
Local time: 02:09

Grading comment

Your answer was most helpful thanks.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

5 +1

ventilation shaft

Barbara Cochran, MFA

air shafts

Margarita Ezquerra (Smart Translators, S.L.)

air wells

Carol Gullidge

air shafts

Lisa Camastro (X)

Answers

14 mins confidence:

air shafts

Explanation:
Suerte

Margarita Ezquerra (Smart Translators, S.L.)
Spain
Local time: 02:09
Native speaker of: Spanish
PRO pts in category: 84

Notes to answerer

Asker: "air shafts" would suggest that they were for something other than ventilation. "suerte" I' m an Italian-English translator.

Asker: Thanks

23 mins confidence:

air wells

Explanation:
This could do as well, although I see nothing wrong with air shafts, which are perhaps smaller than air wells. This also has sonic connotations with stair wells. Air wells is slightly unusual, but acceptable in a literary text, which is in itself out of the ordinary. Definitely not "floods of air" or "air floods"!

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Note added at 1 hr (2006-11-18 11:37:39 GMT)
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If they're horizontal (new info), then how about air tunnels, or even corridors - an unlikely possibility - but then it's all pretty unlikely!

Carol Gullidge
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:09
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 315

Notes to answerer

Asker: Part of my problem is that this writer spends some pages comparing this short story with a work of art, a video projection and hooks onto "pozos" or in Italian "pozzi". Now a ventilation shaft is can be vertical but I see them in this story as horizontal. Now a well is something which as my author says more than once goes down and down and down. But then again, why not "ventilation shafts" ? The Italian translation my author cites for "pozos de ventilacion" is "pozzo di ventilazione", which in English becomes a "ventilation well". A "ventilation shaft" would be a "condotto di ventilazione". There is a bad translation somewhere.

Asker: Thanks

1 hr confidence:

air shafts

Lisa Camastro (X)
Local time: 02:09
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 4

Grading comment

Your answer was most helpful thanks.

Notes to answerer

Asker: Yes Lisa These pozos (I don't know Spanish but it would seem very similar to pozzi in Italian) are definitely vertical looking more carefully: "Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite." This is much more like a deep and wide well than a shaft. The shaft of an arrow comes to mind which is a different concept. My author is definitely thinking of a deep well rather than a narrow shaft. Thanks for the help.

17 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

ventilation shaft

Explanation:
In Harper Collins Unabridged Spanish/English Dictionary, pozo de ventilacion=ventilation shaft.

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Note added at 17 hrs (2006-11-19 03:55:49 GMT)
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I mean "shafts."

Barbara Cochran, MFA
United States
Local time: 20:09
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 103

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