eslHQ
Post

varanda, balcony, terrace?

Posted by mesmark · December 15, 2008 · 3 replies

Do you differentiate between these?

3 Replies

Balcony and terrace - for me it's size and support. A balcony is a strip along the wall of the house, on the first floor or higher, with nothing underneath it. It just juts out. Might just be outside a window or might run the length of the building, but won't be more than about a metre wide. Above it there will either be nothing or just the balcony of the floor above. There'll be some sort of railing around it.

A terrace on the other hand is much larger, probably square or rectangular, and will be supported - it will probably be the "roof" of another, lower part of the building. There probably won't be anything above it - it'll be open to the sky - though some are sometimes partially covered, and is likely to be surrounded by a fairly solid wall.

A veranda (I'd spell it like that ??) is what I think in the States you call a porch (?). ie a slightly raised platform outside the ground floor of a house, sometimes with pillar-like supports to a roof which covers it.

oops, oops, you're right. It's veranda in the States too.

It has come up quite a bit for some reason these days and in Japanese balconies are all called verandas (in a Japanese accent 🙂 )

I've been explaining this quite a few times and I started questioning myself ...

I just knew baranda in Spanish though...the rest of the words, I understand the same meanings