Postal best translated as postcard, note, or report, in this context?

Question

Hi all,

I´m trying to translate a passage, and am not quite sure about transmitting ¨postal¨ (and noun, in Spanish in this case) literally as ¨postcard¨, or more figuratively as ¨report¨, ¨message¨ or ¨note¨.

What do you fine folks think.

Here is the original Spanish text. .

Ésta es una pequeña y triste postal de una nación donde, según Naciones Unidas (ONU), 6,3 millones de personas han sido forzadas a dejar sus hogares y casi la mitad de la población depende de ayuda humanitaria.

. And here is my attempt, fir which I have currently provisionally used ¨message¨.

.

This is a small and sad message from a nation where, according to the United Nations (UN), 6.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes and almost half of the population depends on humanitarian aid.

I don´t have a feel for what a Spanish speaker is most likely trying to say with ¨postal¨, and whether they literally mean postcard (even though it is not literally a physical postcard) or if it is more akin to note, posting, message, story, or account.

Answer 1

A sad little postcard, a sad little note..

Un mensaje corto.. (maybe a P.S.)

Very good translation, Roger.

Thanks Annie. - rogspax, Dec 19, 2013

Answer 2

Postal is an adjective. Una pequeña y triste is a group of adjectives with the first two words in feminine gender, so this tells you that the missing noun is feminine, which in turn tells you that it cannot be mensaje, but that it has to be tarjeta.

If it were nota, it would not make sense to say nota postal - as far as I know, there is no such thing.

Thanks Julian. I didn't get it at first. So, there is a valid noun/adjective combo tarjeta postal, and it was just shortened to not explicitly include tarjeta? Got it. - rogspax, Dec 19, 2013

Answer 3

Postal is an adjective

Actually, in the text, "postal" is used as short for "tarjeta postal" (postcard) and acts as a noun. It's a metaphoric way of saying that it's a (small and sad) picture of the situation.

Thanks Dual G. That makes sense now. I had kind of assumed that without thinking about it much, and so was already focused on whether it meant that literally, or if people just use it as a shorthand for a not or message. In any event, thanks much! - rogspax, Dec 19, 2013