The superblock memo
A district analyst has two pages to say whether a Barcelona superblock should be extended, and every sentence she writes has to stop exactly where the evidence does. C1 Spanish hedging.
El memorando sobre la supermanzana
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Marta, an analyst in a Barcelona district mobility office, drafts a two page memo on extending a superblock. The text explains what a superblock is, that it groups around nine Eixample blocks and routes through traffic around the perimeter, and that the grid with its chamfered corners was designed by Ildefons Cerdà in the nineteenth century. It then works through her sentences one at a time: why the data suggest rather than prove, why traffic displacement to the perimeter cannot be ruled out, and why her manager warns her not to confuse caution with vagueness.
Una supermanzana agrupa alrededor de nueve manzanas del Eixample. El tráfico de paso circula por el perímetro y las calles interiores quedan sobre todo para el peatón, con el tráfico vecinal y de servicios admitido a velocidad muy reducida, entre bancos, juegos y árboles donde antes había plazas de aparcamiento. La retícula que lo hace posible, con sus chaflanes en cada esquina, la proyectó Ildefons Cerdà en el siglo XIX: la supermanzana no inventa la trama, la reordena. Uno de los ámbitos más conocidos se implantó en el barrio de Poblenou, aunque el modelo ya se había ensayado antes en Vitoria-Gasteiz, una ciudad sin esa retícula, y desde 2016 aparece con más frecuencia en debates urbanísticos de otros países.
El borrador de Marta empieza con una frase que le costó una tarde entera: «Los datos disponibles sugieren una reducción del tráfico en el interior del ámbito, aunque no permiten afirmar que el descenso se mantenga en el conjunto del barrio.»
Cada palabra de esa frase hace un trabajo distinto. Sugieren no promete causalidad; disponibles admite que hay datos que todavía no están; no permiten afirmar no niega el efecto, solo dice hasta dónde llega la prueba.
El problema de fondo es de método, no de redacción. Cuando una calle cambia, cambian a la vez otras cosas: el comercio de la esquina, la línea de autobús, el año con el que se compara. Un primer vistazo a los recuentos indicaría una caída general; mirado con calma, el dato tiende a decir menos de lo que aparenta.
Hay además una objeción que Marta no quiere esquivar: es posible que el tráfico no desaparezca, sino que se desplace a las calles del perímetro. Ninguna medición del interior, por buena que sea, responde a esa pregunta; hay que mirar fuera. En el memorando queda así: «No cabe descartar un desplazamiento del tráfico hacia el perímetro; la evaluación propuesta debería medirlo de forma explícita.»
Al releer, Marta tacha dos adverbios. «Claramente» y «sin duda» le parecen ahora una manera de subir la voz cuando falta evidencia. En cambio, deja intacta una frase del apartado de ruido: la mejora parece real en las calles interiores y, en cierta medida, más pequeña si se promedia todo el ámbito, perímetro incluido.
Su jefa le devuelve el texto con una única nota al margen: que no confunda prudencia con vaguedad. Una frase atenuada sigue teniendo que decir algo. «Podría haber beneficios» no informa a nadie; «podría reducirse el ruido nocturno en las calles interiores, y la evaluación lo comprobará con sonómetros fijos» sí informa.
Quizás la frase más útil del memorando no sea ninguna de las anteriores, sino la que abre el apartado de limitaciones y admite qué preguntas quedan abiertas. La versión final no promete nada que la
About this article
What you'll learn
Hedging in Spanish: sugieren, indicaría, tiende a, es posible que, quizás with the subjunctive, en cierta medida, no cabe descartar, and the concessive por buena que sea.
Marta, an analyst in a Barcelona district mobility office, drafts a two page memo on extending a superblock. The text explains what a superblock is, that it groups around nine Eixample blocks and routes through traffic around the perimeter, and that the grid with its chamfered corners was designed by Ildefons Cerdà in the nineteenth century. It then works through her sentences one at a time: why the data suggest rather than prove, why traffic displacement to the perimeter cannot be ruled out, and why her manager warns her not to confuse caution with vagueness.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
No cabe descartar
newone cannot rule out
Caber here means to be admissible rather than to fit. No cabe descartar keeps a possibility open without claiming it is likely, which is weaker than es probable and stronger than silence.
The standard formula for naming a risk in a report without asserting it.
en cierta medida
newto some extent
Medida here is a degree, not a measurement. Set between commas, the phrase narrows a claim without withdrawing it.
It buys precision where a bare adjective would overstate.
nota al margen
newa marginal note
Nota al margen is the usual pairing, although escribir en el margen is also correct. The related phrase al margen de means apart from, leaving aside.
Two uses of one phrase, one literal and one abstract, both common in writing about documents.
El problema de fondo
newthe underlying problem
De fondo marks what lies beneath the surface issue. The same pattern gives ruido de fondo, background noise, and cuestión de fondo, the substantive question.
A compact way to separate the real difficulty from its symptoms.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
City blocks
nueve manzanas
nine city blocks
La manzana is both an apple and a city block, and the block sense is the one that fills urban planning texts. In Latin America cuadra is very common, above all for the stretch of street between two corners, although manzana is still current for the whole block.
Reading manzana as apple in a planning document produces nonsense, and it happens often.
Chamfered corners
chaflanes
cut corners, chamfers
A chaflán is a corner cut off at an angle instead of meeting in a right angle. In Barcelona the word is unavoidable: almost every crossing in the Eixample has four of them.
Barcelona texts use this word the way other cities use square or avenue.
The draft
El borrador
draft
From borrar, to erase: a borrador is both a draft text and the eraser that wipes a board. Context separates them without effort once you know both exist.
It turns up very often in the header of working documents.
Crosses out
tacha
crosses out, strikes through
Tachar is to strike a line through something written. Tachar a alguien de, with de, means to brand someone as something, a quite different and often hostile act.
The preposition is what separates editing a text from accusing a person.
A bounded pilot
una prueba acotada
a limited trial
Acotar is to fence a piece of ground, and from there to set the limits of a study, a problem or a debate. Acotar el alcance is the phrase you will meet in project documents.
It says limited on purpose, which is not the same as small.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Data suggest, they do not prove
Los datos disponibles sugieren
the available data suggest
Sugerir, indicar and apuntar a let evidence point somewhere without the writer claiming causation. The second half shows the companion move: no permiten afirmar que takes the subjunctive se mantenga, because the assertion is being denied.
The pair of a soft verb and a bounded denial is the backbone of any evidence paragraph.
Es posible que plus subjunctive
es posible que el tráfico no desaparezca
it is possible that the traffic does not disappear
Impersonal expressions of possibility govern the subjunctive: desaparezca, se desplace. Compare es evidente que desaparece, where certainty restores the indicative.
Possibility and certainty are marked by the mood, not by an extra word.
The conditional as a hedge
indicaría
would indicate
The condition here is not introduced by si: it is carried by the subject, un primer vistazo, set against mirado con calma. Indicaría instead of indica marks the reading as provisional, and the same trick gives cabría pensar, convendría revisar, sería prudente.
A one letter change turns a finding into a working hypothesis.
Quizás and the mood you choose
Quizás la frase más útil del memorando no sea
perhaps the most useful sentence is not
Quizás, tal vez and acaso accept both moods before the verb, and the choice carries meaning: no sea leaves the idea open, no es presents it as settled. After the verb, quizás only takes the indicative.
It is a clear case, among several, where the mood alone grades the speaker's confidence, as it does with probablemente, posiblemente and seguramente.
Tender a instead of a flat claim
tiende a decir menos de lo que aparenta
tends to say less than it appears to
Tender a plus infinitive turns an absolute statement into a tendency that admits exceptions, and it stem changes like entender: tiende, tienden. Compare el dato dice menos, which allows no exception at all.
It is the cheapest way to make a generalisation survive the first counterexample.
However good it may be
por buena que sea
however good it is
Por plus adjective or adverb plus que plus subjunctive concedes a quality and then sets it aside: por buena que sea, por caro que resulte, por mucho que insista. The adjective agrees with what it describes, here the feminine medición.
It concedes a point and refuses its conclusion in four words.
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