Fear Image

Fear

Oct 18, 2014Canadian, Life&Food, Science&Tech

QR Link

Access this article on a mobile device

QR Code

Preparation

What do you think is a strange fear?

Are you afraid of the same things now that scared you when you were a child?

MP3

Right click this link to download the mp3.

PDF

Right click this link to download a printable PDF file for this conversation.

Transcript

José Cruz: Anyway, he knew he had a fear of heights, but he also knew at 16 years old, that he has to go with his tour group, to go. And he doesn’t want to go,'to go' in colloquial English often means, 'to say'. So ‘he goes to me’ can mean, ‘he says to me’. (0:06)“Oh but i have a fear of heights so I’m going to, like, stay in the lobby.” He didn’t want to seem like a bit of a chicken, so he tried to go up with the group, but when he got there, he could just see, not even looking down but just looking, you know, horizontally out the window that, “Oh my, oh my, you know, like, I’m I’m a 150 metres, I’m a hundred metres up in the sky.” and and, and he just sat down on a bench and just tried not to look out the window until the whole group was finished and then he just ended up telling one of the teachers, “I have a fear of heights.” And the teacher said, “Ah cool. Just sit here”. And it turned out to be absolutely no big deal, none of the kids bugged him about it, and nothing so we we… But it was good of him to try, you know. (Mm-hmm) What what, what are your search results there?

Alex Bodnar: It’s “Acrophobia” (Acrophobia) Yes. An extreme or irrational fear of heights.

José: And I think Agoraphobia is a fear of the- of open spaces, no?

Alex: Ah you might be right.

José: So go for Agoraphobia.

Alex: There’s also Batophobia which is fear of heights or being close to high buildings.'high buildings'is not actually correct. Alex and José should have actually said 'tall buildings' (1:11)

José: What? Close to high buildings? (Yes. Batophobia) What? You’re afraid they’re going to fall on you?

Alex: I don’t know.

José: Oh, could you imagine having that phobia, and being in downtown New York on September 11?

Alex: Oh.

José: Ohhh. Woah, you probably would like move out to Wyoming.

Alex: You you know uh actually, you know what uh, scares me? Well, it doesn’t really scare me. But uh I worry just a little bit being around tall cranes.

José: Cranes?

Alex: Because every year, it seems like in the news that there’s a crane accident.

José: Hmmm. Ah, did you ever see um, I think it was “Spider Man 3”. Did you ever see that movie, Spider Man 3?

Alex: I think so. You know what I I I can’t keep track of all the Spider Man movies now. There’s so many now.

José: It was the first series of Spider Man movies and there was a big scene where a crane goes wild, and starts wrecking outThe verb (to) wreck doesn't need the preposition 'out'. Jose made a colloquial mistake. (2:17) nearby skyscrapers.

Alex: Oh. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Spider Man 3, but you know I can’t remember that, that scene you’re talking about now.

José: Ok well then obviously it’s not a really deep phobia, because if it was a deep phobia you’d remember it. Because this this was a big chunk of the movie- not a big chunk of the movie, butJosé corrects himself by taking his recently said mistake, saying 'not' before he repeats the mistaken phrase, and places 'but' in front of what is correct. (2:33) it was a big action sequence. And uh, Spider Man jumps in saves the girl, and you know all all that stuff that you could predict. But it was uh, a big crane that was going nuts.

Alex: Well I think I think uh, Our imagination uh plays, or induces the the our biggest fears.

José: Could be. Also too um, there’s the idea that this is- if you know that this is just a movie it’s not going to trigger the same set of um, um psychological responses in you as you would if you saw this three-dimensional crane standing next to you, right?

Alex: I think the last movie I saw that, that I thought was scary was “The Grudge.”

José: The Grudge. Oh that’s based on um, a Japanese one called, “Junon”, right?

Alex: Juon. (Ju- Juon?) Juon, yes.

José: OK OK that’s it. Yeah, I. See, stuff like that, that takes me back to the whole idea that I’m afraid of vampires because of vampires movies. (Ahh) If I were to watch the same vampire movies now, (Mm-hmm) I’d I’d be giggling and laughing (Right) because they’re so dumb. But movies can set you off. And so, uh I had a hard time watching “The Ring” either the Japanese version or the um, the Hollywood version. Because that was- They were both really well made, right? And I didn’t wanna watch Juon and I didn’t watch The Grudge

Alex: I haven’t seen The Ring but uh, yeah, there there aren’t many movies that scare me like that. Uh, well I uh, actually, another good one is “The Shining”.

José: That didn’t do anything for me at all.

Alex: Oh really?

José: Not at all.

Consolidation
DISCUSSION

What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen? Why did it scare you?

Is there something that scares other people, but doesn’t scare you?

We don’t have any pointers for this conversation, but if you have a question, please ask in the ‘Comments’ below. We might use your question as the base for a future pointer.

Take the quiz

QR Link

Access this article on your mobile device

QR Code

GoldFish Audio cover

Speakers

José Domingo Cruz image

José Domingo Cruz

Canadian

Vancouver, British Columbia

Alex Bodnar Image

Alex Bodnar

Canadian

Harriston, Ontario


Statistics

  • words (including pause words)
  • minutes in the mp3 audio
  • words per minute for this article



Continue practicing your English fluency with the related posts above, or navigate to other authentic conversations using the Previous and Next buttons below.

Spritz

To spritz only part of this conversation, highlight the text you want and click the “SPRITZ NOW!” button. Clicking the button without any text highlighted will spritz the entire page.

To quickly adjust the words per minute (wpm), you can use the left and right arrow keys.

Writing comments will help your English writing skills. Feel free to ask questions and share opinions. We try to respond to all comments we get on the site. test

2 Comments

  1. I consider that all problems come from fear. In my case, I am afraid of speaking English, so I cannot speak well in the IELTS exam. However, I want to get over this drawback absolutely though it is tough for me. This is because I want to realise my dream that is studying abroad. Today, I decided to speak English more and more.

    Reply
  2. I think that fear have big power. Many problems come from fears. I’m afraid of a bee and many dots. When I see them, I get goose bumps. My mother has Acrophobia. We are family, however we have another phobia. It is mysterious.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Hikari Hamada Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This

Share This

Share this post with your friends!