The Baofeng UV-5R is a great radio.
As the Baofeng UV5R radios become more and more popular, their is a ton of content that is available. One thing that I don't seem to find a lot of are explanations of the poorly written manual, and what each menu item actually does.
Why is it talking to me in Chinese ? 确认
When you first pull the Baofeng UV5R radio out of the box and charge up the battery, the first thing you will notice is that the radio talks to you in Chinese. This is controlled by Menu item #14. Simply push the "Menu" button just below the A/B switch, and then use the UP/DOWN arrow keys just below the "Baofeng" logo and steer to Menu item #14. Then you will want to push "menu again and use the arrow keys to change to ENG, and press "Menu" one more time to save the setting. You should hear "Confirm" in English once you have done this. Now when you turn your radio on it should tell you whether you are in Frequency mode or Channel mode.