Is this place called passage or hallway or corridor or pathway?

Question

Mary is just 6 and I need to show her where her class is in a school.

After Mary goes through the school gate, she has to go through a place (as shown in the picture below), then turn right to another building and her class is on the first floor of that building.

This is the front of the school

Is this place called passage or hallway or corridor or pathway?

For example, "Marry, you have to go through the passage or hallway or corridor or pathway, then take a right to another building. Your class is on the first floor of that building."

Answer 1

Definitely not pathway, as those are normally out of doors.

The usual term in a public building is corridor, but passage would be OK. Hallway usually describes the area just inside the main entrance; I don't think it has the connotation of passing right through the building.

Surely, if Mary's class is in a separate building, you need to tell her to walk through the first building and out at the other side before turning right?

Answer 2

If I understand that the space Mary walks through is open to the outdoors on both ends, with no doors, then the best word for this would be a breezeway, "an architectural feature similar to a hallway" that is both sheltered from above but also open on the sides.

The words you propose can have a fair amount of overlap, but some differing shades of meaning:

• passage could also be used here, as it's very generic; it just means something you "pass through." Thus a hallway is also a "passage," but a bedroom is not. "Passage" could be used of indoor spaces, often a narrow space that forces traffic "through" it, or for outdoor spaces where traffic is restricted into a channel by some structure (e.g. the geographical usage "the Northwest Passage").
• hallway is usually fully indoors, and usually has doors to rooms opening off it. It might sometimes be casually used even if there are no doors, but most often, it's a way to access other rooms that branch off of it. It would be less common for "hallway" to be used for anything much longer than a typical building; e.g. a long underground tunnel would be more likely a "corridor."
• corridor is also a fairly generic word. MW shows that one meaning of it is simply the same as hallway: a reasonably-sized indoor passage with doors opening off it. It could also be used for indoor spaces that don't have these doors, or are wider or longer than a hallway would usually be. These could also overlap with "passage." Any outdoor uses of "corridor" (MW 2 and 3) are usually more metaphorical, like "elephants migrate via this corridor shown on the map"; an outdoor "passage" could be more literal like "We went through a narrow passage between rock walls," while "corridor" would be a less likely choice for this physical situation and would be more likely restricted to either indoor structures or broad geographical concepts.
• pathway, with a literal and physical meaning, is usually fully outdoors, like a "path" or "trail," without a roof. (It also has a few other meanings.)

Answer 3

I would say "None of the above."

Mary has to go through the entrance to get into the building.