Category Archives: Society

Advantages of working as a freelance translator 

Being a freelance translator has so many benefits, a combination of being self-employed, and in such an exciting topic, you can finally start your very own beginning doing something that you truly love.

Of course, a regular 9-5 job gives you some benefits like security but no regular job will give you the freedom and thrill that a freelance translator will give you. There may be skepticism but the advantages of this kind of work are immense.

If you’re debating whether to make this move, these next few points might just persuade you.

  What does the job entail?

Firstly, let’s touch on just what the job entails. With advancement in technology, facilities in communication, and employment portals, translators all over the world now have the option to work freelance, on their own terms, and in their own time.

You’ll need a near-native, fluent understanding of at least one other language. You can create your own name for yourself (like your very own little brand) or join through a translator agency. Either way, you’ll be working from home, doing something that comes quite naturally to you. What could be better?

If you’re worried about pay, or making a living from this decision, there’s no need to — the average income for certified translators is $72,000, which is highly desirable in itself. A non-certified translator will make about $53,000.

Now, if you’re a little more convinced that you can do this — here are some of the biggest advantages of being a freelance translator.

  The flexibility

As with every freelance job, the flexibility and freedom that comes alongside it are some of the most appealing factors.

You organize your day, manage the work hours, your income depends on how much work you do, you decide what tasks you work on, and you don’t have to miss events, holidays or any other pursuits you decide to make.

Stay at home parents, travelers or creatives really flourish in this kind of work environment — where they can journey down their own career path without any obstacles. Flexibility is the main reason why so many decide to go down the route of freelance.

  Location-independent

With technology, many people have started to really doubt the future of translators. That’s absolutely nothing to worry about, though.

In fact, technology is your friend. With your laptop in hand, you can take your work anywhere you want. Raining? Stay in your comfy clothes. Sunny? Take your work to the park. Especially when you work for online translation services, you don’t need to account for where your work for, as soon as you get the job done.

You don’t have to commute to an office, you can work in the comfort of your own home when it’s cold. You can travel to another country whenever you please and, you can even move to your dream location. The possibilities are completely endless.

  The autonomy

We all know the downside of having a boss, or working in a corporate world. You can sometimes feel like you’re being closely monitored but you don’t have this problem with being self-employed.

Your income is dependent on how much you earn, your hours are your choice and your schedule is completely up to you. For the most part, you’ll only be partaking in things that you really want to do. Except maybe chasing up some invoices, but at least it doesn’t involve office politics, right?

Basically, a little bit of business management knowledge mixed with your passion will make this an amazing decision.

  Age doesn’t matter

If you’re still young you can probably skip past this point. It might surprise you to know that as you get older you sometimes become less desirable. As unfair as this is, it’s a reality.

When you’re a freelancer, your age just isn’t relevant. There’s not retirement age, and there’s no kind of discrimination. As long as you produce high-quality work and keep to deadlines, you’re desired.

This can work in both ways too, as long as you’re a great translator, you’ll be taken seriously. Whether you’ve just graduated or you’re close to retirement.

  You’ll always be needed

Technology evolves quickly, but so does language. Humans will always be an essential part of high-quality translations, making you crucial.

As technology advances, you’ll just need to advance with it. With new tools, platforms, and, of course, improving your own language skills, you’ll make sure that you keep relevant in a competitive line of work.

As you progress and build up your freelancing career, you could make your own agency and expand into other aspects of translation. It’s a really exciting opportunity, one that should be celebrated.

Most importantly, you’ll love what you do and see just how much your skills are appreciated. You’ll never look back on your decision.

  Conclusion

Translation combined with freelancing can easily become a dream come true. You’ll be networking with people all over the world and doing it from the comfort of your own home…or beach.

 

 

Depression is Dangerous for Young and Old Individuals

Elderly adults represent a considerable section of the general population. However, this he portion of elderly people is projected to increase with time. The mental health issues of elderly individuals are significant during therapy, support stages, as well as policy issues. The high incidence of suicide among the elderly is attributed to increased severe cases of depression. During old age, depression is one of the mental health complications that often presents itself and is often comorbid with other psychiatric and physical diseases usually due to stress resulting from this condition. In elderly adults, depression often presents itself as impairments that are usually linked with aging like psychomotor speed and memory. However, evidence from research has shown that higher levels of exercise have the potential to reduce the chances of developing depression among elderly adults even if other factors such as the body mass index, chronic conditions, as well as social associations are taken into consideration. Moreover, behavioral rehabilitation and prescriptions of antidepressants that can be tolerated by elderly adults can be employed in the management of depression.

The Prevalence of Depression among the Elderly

Depression represents a variety of social and biological factors, and it is often relatively hard to diagnose among elderly patients because its manifestation may vary from the symptoms of depression witnessed in younger adults. Elderly people usually under-report or ignore their depression symptoms and could fail to recognize whether they are sad, depressed, or down. This is mostly attributed to advanced age, lack of comprehension, and shame of being associated with the disorder or a perception that such conditions ought not to be discussed in public. In most cases, common signs or symptoms associated with depression among elderly patients like lack of enjoyment common activities, absence of interest in living, lack of concentration, unexplained chronic pain, or impaired memory are often erroneously associated with old age, poor health conditions, as well as dementia. In most cases, physicians, friends, and family usually interpret such symptoms in a similar manner; as a result depression during advanced age often goes on for a long time before diagnosed.

The world health organization holds that the factors escalating the risk of depression among elderly patients include chronic diseases, poverty, adverse life events, going through a divorce, bereavement, disability, pain, genetic susceptibility, as well frustrations emanating from the limitation of daily living. Moreover, depression is also caused by personality traits, social isolation, separation, as well as the absence of adequate social support. Most surveys have illustrated that there is an association between depression and several socioeconomic factors such as poverty, advanced age, manual occupational jobs, and the level of education.

The prevalence of depression, which is a condition that has been observed to cause complications in life that have an adverse effect on daily activities tends to vary in relation to the methodology used with the figures estimated at 7.2% to 49%. In general, the prevalence of depression in Turkey varies from 35% to 65% in diverse studies conducted using different research designs. Moreover, the world health organization estimates that the prevalence of depression among elderly adults ranges from 10% to 20% globally, but these figures are dependent on the existing cultural situation. Community-based mental health surveys have shown that the prevalence of depressive complications in India among elderly patients tends to vary from 13% to 25%. Even though India is the second largest country in terms of its population, the number of people above the age of 60 suffering from depression is very small that it is not considered a health challenge in the country.

In various systemic reviews conducted to assess the prevalence of depression in France, Spain, USA, Italy, and the United Kingdom residing in private households, it was observed that 14% of the French, 25% of the Spanish, and 17% of the British, 5% to 36% in the USA, as well as 30% to 49% of the Italian population, was suffering from the condition. This indicates that depression is a health complication that transcends borders and affects a wide number of people. Since the projections indicate that the number of elderly individuals will rise by a considerable amount in the near future, there is the need to conduct more research to understand the manifestation of depression among the elderly so that it can be detected and treated early.

As more adults approach the age of 60 years, they begin to suffer from aging complications such as depression. However, the depression manifested in elderly people presents its self in ways that are associated with other aging complication, and hence it is very difficult to diagnose early enough. As the number of elderly individuals is projected to rise drastically in the near future, there is the need to conduct more research on the signs and symptoms of depression in older people so that such cases can be identified early and the appropriate therapy administered. Depression often leads to suicidal tendencies. Therefore, it is critical to understand the complication so as to enhance the development of elderly individuals and improve their quality of life.

 

Moral values and our responsibility

Have you ever thought about values morals? How are values and morals similar? And what do you know about moral values? In his article entitled “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Peter Singer outlines the principle that states “if it is within our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything comparable importance, we ought, morally to do it,”.  He builds this principle on the assumption that, “Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad”.  According to Singer, “most people will agree on this, although one may reach the same view by different routes,”. Thus, the paper argues that donating money to take care of cases such as famine and poverty as a way of preventing a bad thing such as death from occurring is not only an act of charity but it is also a moral obligation that each person must consider engaging in regularly. This should be done, not because one feels like it but because it is their responsibility to do so.

One of the more fundamental arguments that Singer outlines in this text is that; should an individual witness a child drowning; they should not wait for other people to respond. Instead, said individual should arrest the situation and rescue the child while expecting nothing in return. Singer uses this scenario to illustrate how the principle of stopping bad things from happening while being sure not to sacrifice something of more importance should work. To him, getting his clothes muddy is insignificant when compared to the possible death of the child as a result of drowning. He applies the analogy with the aim of explaining to his audience how donating to charities responsible for providing shelter, and providing assistance to the poor and those affected by famine is of moral importance can aid in changing the society.

It is logical to assume that saving a drowning child will appear as the moral responsibility of any adult. Singer utilizes the use of a child as the main character in the analogy to outline the state of helplessness. He uses the child to represent the state of helplessness in which people faced with poverty and famine are always in. According to him, it is natural that just like him every adult out there would jump into the pond irrespective of getting their clothes muddy to save the child. Singer compares this to the drive that makes people contribute in charitable facilities. He insists that just like we are obliged to save the drowning child even if it means making our clothes dirty, we should replicate this in giving for charity. According to the principle, it is a moral requirement for individuals to give money to charity and not giving is morally wrong. However, people are not required to give to charity to the extent that their giving creates a worse scenario than it is supposed to prevent.

Notably, Singer makes an argument that it does not matter whether the drowning child is far away or closes. Proximity or location shouldn’t be something that discourages humans from helping each other. To him, the act of giving should neither be limited by distance nor should it confine itself to the geographical location. Singer makes his stand by stipulating that he does not have to say much about distance and proximity. He outlines that the act of giving is not entirely dependent on the location or the distance because one does not need to know an individual to give money. Additionally, he states that the act of giving does not rely on the notion that a person is the only one entitled to do something nor does it specify that an individual is the only one among a million people doing the charity. The act of charity is a personal burden that each person must, without being influenced by the geographical location or the distance, carry. In the analogy of the drowning child, it is expected that every adult just like Peter will jump into the pond save the child irrespective of their geographical location and distance since it is the moral thing to do. Hence, geographic range, as well as location, should not be a hindrance to charitable work in the aim of preventing a potentially bad such as poverty in the community. Thus, according to the author charity as a moral requirement of every individual is not governed the proximity of the victim. In the drowning child analogy, an adult would not stop to help a child primarily because they come from a different geographical area. As outlined in the case, the distance, as well as the geographical location of a person in need of help, should not be a fundamental determining factor when giving out charity.

Apparently, the argument by Singer that donating money to charity should be an obligation guided by a moral perspective, gives rise to an objection. Some people do not like to donate money to charitable organizations since they cannot see the tangible effect of their money. Hence, due to lack of moral stimulation people tend to shy away from contributing money to these organizations. However, when showcasing his arguments, Singer forgets to put this situation into play.

Despite, supporting this argument by utilizing the drowning child scenario the author does not put into consideration that mostly the moral stimulation of seeing the person in need of charity is the key motivator for individuals to get involved in charity.

For example, just like Singer, most people would feel the urge of helping a drowning child. This is not always the case when donating money for charity to charitable organizations thus; people lack the motivation to give money. Notably, based on the notion that these charitable organizations are generous in, for example, paying their employees, most people lack the trust that their money will carry on the charity work it was intended. These factors exist when people are deciding on donating their money to charitable organizations.