I initially sent six pages of mistakes to the publisher of the English book we are using with our sophomore students. They thanked me for pointing out the mistakes and have incorporated around half of them into the new printing of the book, which commenced within a few days of my e-mail. It seems I am going freelance now as they have offered a deal in which I would finish checking the book. I have accepted and am over halfway done now. My second list of mistakes is currently on page 18.
The book has a lot of old terminology, misspellings, grammar mistakes, Konglish, etc.
My favorite vocabulary terms include "boffo" which is a movie term, and "too maw maw" apparently a shopping term. With that last one I would swear I was living in Singapore and checking for Singlish.
For "online courses" they have said "Open Cyber University" of "OCU."
For a "retreat" they have said "Membership Training," or "MT," which they later say isn't in America and after doing a search I found out this term is only used in Korea.
This book was published last year and yet it references restaurants that have left Korea years ago.
"I love good coffee. You could call me a coffee gourmet." While this term is technically correct it sounds instead like he is saying "You could call me gourmet coffee." Which is similar to my first great mistake in Korean. I very proudly told the teacher "Barbecued meat ate me for lunch."
My favorite mistake in this book, which brought me to tears in the Teacher Room, was trying to ask about someone's feelings; "Are you happy all the time?" That sentence is fine, but it was preceded by the question "How is your mental health?"
Saturday, March 15, 2008
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