Wednesday, August 03, 2011

closer to completion

For the curious: a first look at Time, Effort, and Focus, the tutoring blog/website I've been working on. It's not complete yet; there are still quite a few elements to add, but the basic structure is pretty much set, and I've been plugging at this thing daily for the past week or so. Feel free to leave comments here if you have thoughts on what more could be done with that site. Most of the work I've done can be found at the fixed pages which are linked by those under-the-banner tabs.

Just FYI, I'm planning to work on the following:

1. finishing a write-up for the Religion section

2. adding an actual graphic to the banner, which won't be a text-only title

3. adding graphics to the fixed pages to liven up the text

4. adding material to the blog's margins-- teaching/learning references, a picture of yours truly, etc.

5. creating an actual rate chart

6. adding links, to be sprinkled throughout the fixed pages, that reference the rate chart and other resources

7. using Google Docs (thanks for the idea, Steve) to upload syllabi for the religion/religious studies courses


If you spot mistakes/awkwardness in the French or Korean text (especially the Korean), please let me know.


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3 comments:

Charles said...

I didn't see too much actual Korean text on the site, except for 한국어/안녕하세요 on the "foreign language" page. Did I miss it elsewhere?

I also noticed that you are offering creative writing classes. I'm in the middle of a week-long CW workshop with my students at the moment. I wasn't sure what to expect, but everyone participating has risen to the challenge and it's going quite well.

Say, speaking of producing "short stories, poetry and even plays," I seem to remember that you've got a play to write...

Kevin Kim said...

Charles,

I don't know whether you had the chance to review the material fully, but on the page devoted to standardized tests, the bottom of the page features a blurb about TOEFL in both English and Korean. As you'll see right away, the Korean wasn't meant to be a translation of English-- both the specific language and the tone of the Korean text (rather clipped and clinical) are at odds with the English, thanks mainly to my lack of Korean mastery. What worries me is that I may have written the Korean part (specifically the first five lines) in a rather off-putting tone. And whether the next two lines come off as a cheerful admonition isn't clear.

Charles said...

Yeah, I missed that part...

I wouldn't say that the first part comes off as off-putting, just as a list of bullet points. The use of the honorific (사시면, 계시는 분) doesn't really jive with the clipped endings, though. Either go straight clipped (워싱턴DC/북버지니아 거주자인 경우..., 대한민국 거주자인 경우...) or write out full sentences using the honorific. If you're worried about the possible off-puttingness, go with the latter. I think that would work fine, too.

A few more suggestions:

* Drop the "임" from the first line if you're going with clipped.

* Change 자격증 있음 to 자격증 보유 (this is more precise and fits better with the clipped style)

* "Washington" is rendered as 워싱턴 (as above)

Second part:

* 시험 금방 보기 전에 -> 시헙 보기 직전에 (This is probably the most important point linguistically--I understand what you're trying to say, but it's incorrect.)

* Spaces between 어렵기/때문에 and 기다리지/마세요

* Just a suggestion: 토플시험 준비는 충분한 시간이 필요합니다.

I honestly don't know if the last two lines come off as cheerful admonition, mainly because few Koreans would take such test preparation lightly or cheerfully. Most likely they will read it as a sage warning--which is fine, I think.

If you really want to convey the cheerfulness, though, you could always add ^^ to the end. Heh.