This morning I was struck. The thought that I’ve created my own little micro English land everywhere I go in Korea was a little disturbing to me.  “All friends are English speaking. My cellphone is(was) in English.  Stuff in my home is in English:  most books on my shelf, the computer I type on, and much of the music that I listen to.”  Something must change. I want to function efficiently in Korea and operating like it’s not, is not helping.

I’ve tried in the past, to switch electronic stuff over to Korean language. It freaked me out though.  Immediately I couldn’t function. Spending time to decipher required too much effort. Hitting buttons hoping that I would hit the right one, sucked too.  I just gave up and switched back to English and my world became manageable again.

Its clear to me this approach was more extreme than I was willing to handle.  My recent discovery of  SRS flashcards has given me hope though.  At the moment I believe that I can slowly make the switch to Korean, slowly release the English that I hold onto in Korea. I started with my cell phone last week. I made the new flashcard deck specifically for words on my LG cell phone.  At the moment I have around 60 cards.  Everyday the program gives me the words I need to review, gives me 5 new words, and then I input about 10 new cards to the deck.  Its been a week and I’ve figured out most of the functions that I use with some effort. I think in about a month I should be able to figure out most of the phone. If this method works well enough I will start inputting words I find on my washer,  microwave, and even my electronic toilet seat.