Fortochka

[Charles Mills]

Unlike форточка, "quarter window" brings nothing to mind, so I can't say
that's a satisfactory translation for me.

It's fortuitous that this subject should come up because we just covered
apartments in class this week, and how can you discuss Russian realia
without reference to the fortochka (or college students using the window as
a refrigerator)?  In the end, that's how I left it because there is nothing
similar to that I comes to mind in American realia.  If I had to translate
it, I think I would call it the little window that Russians use to cool the
room.

In that regard, I should add that форточка has a second, metaphorical
meaning in chess.  In chess "форточка" is to prophylactically create an
escape route for your castled king, usually with the move of h2-h3 or h7-h6.
 In English we call this "luft" (!) (великий могучий).  ;-)

C. Mills
Pacific Grove



I don't know what a "quarter window" is, whereas anyone who has spent any
time in Russia knows what a форточка is, so I can't say I find it a
satisfactory translation.  It brings

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Julianna Bores <jmbores at gmail.com> wrote:

> Translating форточка as "the quarter window" has been a satisfactory
> translation in the past.
>
> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:06 PM, Lewis B. Sckolnick <info at runanywhere.com
> >wrote:
>
> >  Fortchki are small fixed panes above doors and windows to allow light
> in.
> > In newer versions they can open but in real life they are rarely opened.
> The
> > ones I have are octangular.
> >
> >  In the U.S. we actually used to have форточки, not in apartments, but in
> >> cars manufactured before air conditioning became standard equipment.
> Until
> >> the mid-1960s, I guess, cars had a little triangular window on driver's
> >> side. We always called that the vent window. Does that work?
> >>
> >> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 6:15 AM, Seth Graham<s.graham at ssees.ucl.ac.uk
> >> >wrote:
> >>
> >>
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