Keyboard stickers – gain one skill; lose another

Although I can usually manage reasonably well typing French and German accents on my keyboard, typing Russian is quite a challenge. Until  recently I used http://russian.typeit.org/ which is fine but it does involve copy/paste. On the recommendation of my son, I scoured Amazon and bought some Russian keyboard stickers. (There are several brands and colours to choose from.) Not being particularly digitally skilled, some of mine went on a bit lop-sided, but they’re functional:

keyboardstickersSo now all I need do is switch my language to Russian and I can practise using the keys on the keyboard – proper typing!  Мне нравится изучать русский язык  (See what I did there?) It’s slow at the moment, having to look for the keys – but then handwriting is equally slow. I feel like a child learning how to write all over again, laboriously.

BUT……

For some reason, my brain has now forgotten how to type in English! Nearly half a century ago (yes, really) my auntie taught me how to touch type and it’s been one of the most useful skills I’ve ever acquired (that and Latin!!)  Usually, I only rarely look at the keys and I can type very fast. Well I could. It seems adding extra letters to each key is warping my brain such that, if I glance down now, I will hit the wrong key, type a Russian B from the sticker instead of the British B I’ve been using for decades -and end up with D. I’m making so many typos in English when I rarely did before. It’s very frustrating but I shall persevere, secure in the belief that brain plasticity will win out in the end. And in the meantime -the solution? When typing English,  don’t look at the keyboard! Ever!

 

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