Science and research

Today we're going to continue our discussion of various mental disorders. You may feel anxious on your first day of a new job, or when you have to meet someone important, for example. Some people feel anxious when they visit the dentist. Some typical symptoms include a pounding heart, sweaty palms, or a dry mouth.

Anxieties can be put into three main groups according to what causes the reaction. The first are what we call specific phobias. These are the most common phobias. A very common specific phobia is fear of heights, for example. Fear of spiders and insects is another common one.

Would you believe some people are afraid of color, say, the color yellow? Another strange one is fear of laughter ... What causes these specific phobias? Well, we don't know exactly. We do know that they tend to run in families, and they are apparently slightly more common in women. Specific phobias that develop in childhood are more likely to disappear with time.

Another category of phobia is called social phobia. This fear is really the fear of being embarrassed or humiliated in front of other people. A third category of phobia is known as agoraphobia. This phobia causes people to suffer anxiety about being in places or situations from which they perceive it might be difficult to escape, or in which it seems help is not available. So agoraphobia might include a fear of traveling alone, being alone in a crowd, or being unable to leave a place easily. People with this condition often develop the disorder after suffering from a panic attack. Such panic attacks may occur randomly and without warning. Well, the good news is that all of these disorders can be treated with some degree of success through various medications and therapies.

T. 5

Lost in translation

Interviewer: What made you want to be a translator?

Translator: It was something that I’d done when I was at university and I did a postgraduate course in translation. I liked the idea of working for myself, and it didn’t require too much investment to get started.

Interviewer: What do you think is the most difficult kind of text to translate?

Translator: Literary texts, like novels, poetry, or drama.

Interviewer: In order to translate a novel well, do you think you need to be a novelist yourself?

Translator: I think that’s true ideally, yes.

Interviewer: Another thing I’ve heard that is very hard to translate is advertising, for example slogan.

Translator: Well, with advertising, the problem is that it’s very difficult to translate that. For example, one of the Coca-Cola’ advert, the slogan in English was ‘the real thing’ but you just couldn’t translate that literally into Spanish, it just wouldn’t have had the same power.

Interviewer: What about film titles?

Translator: They’re horrific too. People always complain that they’ve not been translated accurately, but of course it’s impossible because sometimes a literal translation just doesn’t work.

Interviewer: Do you think there are special problems translating film scripts for the subtitles?

Translator: Yes, a lot. There are special constraints, for example the translation has to fit on the screen as the actor is speaking, and really the big problems are cultural, and humor, because they’re just not the same.

Interviewer: What are the pros and cons of being a translator?

Translator: Well, it’s a lonely job, you’re on your own most of time, it’s hard work, and people have always got tight deadlines.

Interviewer: And the pros?

Translator: Well, the pros are that it gives you freedom, because you can do it anywhere if you’ve got an Internet connection and electricity, and I suppose you can organize you time, because you’re freelance, you know, you’re your own boss, which is good.

Interviewer: What advice would you give someone who’s thinking of going into translation?

Translator: I’d say that in addition to the language, get a specialty. Do another course in anything that interests you, like economics, law, history, art, because you really need to know about the subjects that you’re translating into.

T. 6