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I'm trying to translate the following sentence, and I need some help with
locating and understanding possible nuances for translating 錆の浮いた.

The two best possible translations of it (" **become loose** " and " **to
float** ") both work in the overall sentence; however, the issue is I don't
know if there are any nuances that would lead to one being more accurate than
the other.

Any advice or tips will be helpful.

> しかも、出入り口は **錆の浮いた** 鉄扉がひとつだけ。

Possible translations I've come up with are:

> Furthermore, the exit and entrance to the room is only one iron door with
> floating rust particles.
>
> Furthermore, the exit and entrance to the room is only one iron door loose
> with rust.
>
> Furthermore, the exit and entrance to the room is only one iron door loose
> with rust particles.

Edit: The translation I am going with is:

> "Furthermore, the exit and entrance to the room is only one iron door
> peeling with rust."

Realized this is what the sentence possibly meant thanks to the very helpful
suggestion via comment by sazarando.
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question
translation word-choice nuances
I need help with locating nuances in translation for the phrase 錆の浮いた
Weblio is a very useful resource aggregator, freely available online, and
sourcing from various dictionaries.

[Their thesaurus entry for
錆が浮く](https://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E9%8C%86%E3%81%8C%E6%B5%AE%E3%81%8F)
may help you discern the actual meaning.

As far as the phrasing goes, it's important to note that one of the senses of
錆 is:

> 化学変化によって、金属 **の表面に生じた** 、酸化物の皮膜。水酸化物、炭酸塩その他の塩類の皮膜についてもいう。

(Sourced from Shogakukan's 1988 国語大辞典; emphasis mine.)

The bold part is consistent with pretty much all senses of 浮く and 浮ける:
something comes **to the surface**. This is true for the common English
translation of _"to float"_. However, in cases like rust on a piece of metal,
describing the rust as _"floating"_ is clearly not the correct turn of phrase,
and you should probably try some other wording, perhaps even something simple
like _"rusted"_.

### Update: Meaning and Translation

I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick at some point (and if so, I hope
that a native-J contributor might chime in), but when it comes to the phrase
錆が浮く, I really think that translating 浮く here as _"float"_ is missing the
mark. Have a look at [Google Images for the phrase
"錆が浮いた"](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E9%8C%86%E3%81%8C%E6%B5%AE%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%22&tbm=isch)
and you'll see lots of hits related to things simply "being rusted". There's
nothing about "floating" at all, not even about rust flaking off. Nor is there
anything about "loose". This is one good example:

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gLrnc.png)

> **錆が浮いた** チェーンを地道に磨く  
>  Steadily polishing a **rusted** chain

As you can see from the image, the rust is quite minor, with no flakes, and no
loosening of the surface in any way.

### Update: Using Weblio

I'd mistaken your language ability. I'm sorry for that. I'd like to encourage
you to work on your Japanese comprehension until you can use monolingual
resources -- you'll learn a lot more about any language when learning about it
"from inside", as it were. :)

In addition, Weblio has many different resources, not just a thesaurus. For
instance, if you click through to [the thesaurus
entry](https://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E9%8C%86%E3%81%8C%E6%B5%AE%E3%81%8F),
then look across the top of the page, you'll see **英和・和英辞典** , which links
through to [the E>J / J>E dictionary page for that
entry](https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E9%8C%86%E3%81%8C%E6%B5%AE%E3%81%8F).
Sadly, there is no E<>J entry currently in Weblio for this phrase, but you can
use the search bar there to find other things. Looking up the E<>J entry for
浮く, for instance, can lead you to [the list of usage
examples](https://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%E6%B5%AE%E3%81%8F), where
we find that 浮く does not necessarily translate directly to just "float".

Even with limited Japanese capability, if you run across a page like [the
thesaurus
entry](https://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E9%8C%86%E3%81%8C%E6%B5%AE%E3%81%8F),
try picking apart what meaning you can directly. Also look for clickable terms
-- many of the 類語, or synonyms, have clickable thesaurus entries of their own,
some of them with full corresponding E<>J entries.

Good luck with your studies!

### Update: Relative Clauses

In Japanese relative clauses, functionally equivalent to English phrases like
the bolded part in _"the thing **that does XYZ** "_, the subject of the clause
can take either が or の without changing the meaning.

As such, these two are semantically equivalent:

> 錆 **の** 浮いた鉄扉  
>  錆 **が** 浮いた鉄扉

In both cases, we have 錆[の・が]浮いた modifying (describing) the noun 鉄扉.

When converting a relative clause (that modifies a following noun) into an
independent clause (a statement all on its own), we change what we're talking
about -- we go from talking about the 鉄扉, to talking about the 錆, so we need
to mark the 錆 as the subject using が, rather than a noun modifying something
later in the sentence, when we can use の.

If you see a phrase in a relative clause that uses の after the clause's noun,
and you'd like to look it up online to confirm meaning and usage, search with
both の and が to catch more hits.

Other posts have gone more deeply into the mechanics of using の and が in
relative clauses. This is probably the most relevant that I've found:

  * [Why can の and が both mark subjects in relative clauses?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/28200/why-can-%E3%81%AE-and-%E3%81%8C-both-mark-subjects-in-relative-clauses)

You might also enjoy perusing the other search hits:

  * [relative+clause+の+が](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/search?q=relative+clause+%E3%81%AE+%E3%81%8C)
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answer
In terms of nuance, it is more like the rust is at the surface. So while the
impulse may be to literally say "floating rust particles" it sounds more
natural to say something like "loose with rust" or "with visible rust" (such
that it is visible on the surface). Unfortunately some companies prefer a
literal translation so it depends also how much freedom of judgment you can
exercise here.
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answer