Glossary entry (derived from question below)
Spanish term
Argentina
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Ráfagas
Por supuesto. Nada. Por supuesto. Ráfagas, apenas. Y nada, pero ráfagas. ¿De qué? De nada. Ráfagas que soplan donde nunca sopló nada. Que ni soplan. O que empiezan a soplar y luego paran. ¿Para qué van a soplar? Si allí no hay nadie
Rafagas is, of course, a kind of wind. "Gusts" does not work with "apenas" because it refers to a strong wind; "drafts" is only winds in enclosed spaces; "breeze" is too soft for the uncanny situations that the story goes on to describe...any ideas? Thanks
| 5 | gusts |
Steven Huddleston
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| 4 | zephyrs/drafts/current of air/breath of wind/squalls/flutters/flurries |
Carol Gullidge
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| 3 | bursts of wind |
Jorge Merino
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Mar 13, 2013 15:36: Steven Huddleston changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/28228">Wendy Gosselin's</a> old entry - "Ráfagas"" to ""gusts""
Proposed translations
Mexico
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gusts
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Note added at 1 hr (2013-03-07 03:00:16 GMT)
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"...variable winds from 15 to 25 mph, with gusts of up to 35 mph..."
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Note added at 1 day10 hrs (2013-03-08 12:11:20 GMT)
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http://www.weather.com/blog/weather/8_10700.html
Chile
Accurate technical translations
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bursts of wind
Saludos!
United Kingdom
poetically precise prose with... panache
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zephyrs/drafts/current of air/breath of wind/squalls/flutters/flurries
A zephyr sounds good, but, from what you say, it sounds as though you're looking for something that sounds menacing from the start. However, you could rethink this, starting with this mere whisper/flutter of a breeze that seems innocuous at first, thereby building up the tension as you go along. After all, there's nothing particularly menacing about 'ráfagas', so perhaps you shouldn't be thinking of injecting something into the target text that doesn't exist in the source text. Unless of course you're compensating at this stage for some translation loss in the surrounding text...
NB, some of these suggestions don't take kindly to being put in the plural, so, as suggested elsewhere, I'd rephrase the text to make it read nicely in the singular
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Note added at 8 hrs (2013-03-07 10:11:32 GMT)
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SORRY! I see that Wendy already also suggested squalls, breaths of wind...
More possibilities:
breath (of air); whispers
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Note added at 8 hrs (2013-03-07 10:13:09 GMT)
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"whispers" in the metaphorical sense of course!
Discussion
Of course. Nothing. Of course. Wind, barely. And nothing but wind... wind that blows where nothing else blew before...or that starts blowing and then stops. Why will it blow? ...you get the idea :-)