Ask HN: How to Learn to Type Faster? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Learn to Type Faster?

11 pointsgnicholas30 comments

I'm a decent typist (80-100 WPM) but would like to type faster. What websites have good training systems that diagnose your errors and give you targeted practice? Free trial or completely free preferred.

View on HN

Frankly, don't expect to be able to type all that much faster than you already are without extreme measures (unusual keyboard layouts, stenography, etc.) - you're already well above average.

Typing 110-120 wpm, your fingers are hitting ~10 characters per second which is a pretty impressive feat if you think about it; most people will never be able to achieve much beyond that, even with dedication & practice.

One thing you can do is ensure you have a decent keyboard that you're comfortable & familiar with. I'd recommend a mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX brown switches (light tactile feedback without the annoying 'click' of blue switches) - but ultimately, keyboards are highly subjective.

Annoying click?!

To each their own, but tactile keyboards are usually favored by typists because there's physical feedback from actuation. Also, MX browns are actually strictly speaking a tactile switch, just the bump is very muted.

I learnt Workman a decade ago to prevent RSI, but it is also one of the most efficient layouts when it comes to hand movement and finger utilization, with English at least.

https://workmanlayout.org/

The fastest typists these days swear by Colemak-DH which just like Workman fixes many of the shortcomings of Colemak.

To me Workman feels the best, but anything that's not QWERTY is measurably better, whereas the difference between Colemak, Dvorak and so on is more circumstantial.

One caveat that I found: I practiced typing on workman for about a week, and was able to type regular sentences at okay speeds (maybe 30wpm vs 100wpm on qwerty). But then it dawned on me that I would have to relearn all vim, vscode, and window manager shortcuts too. Especially the vim shortcuts really hurt a lot (navigation keys are pretty random), and so I stayed with qwerty.

How long does it take to learn a new layout? How important is it to have a keyboard with properly-labeled keys?

Around a month of using it constantly should do it. If it's your first new layout you are probably going to struggle at first.

No need for labeled keys, it's all about developing muscle memory. Just practice touch typing, starting with the keys near the standard position. Your typing speed will naturally increase over time as your brain adapts, so don't get hang up on not improving fast enough on any given day, sometimes you just have to sleep on it.

I learned Dvorak 16 years ago. To avoid carpal tunnel surgery... I practiced 1 hour daily for 3 weeks, then flipped my personal and work computers to Dvorak.. It took me another week to become comfortable.

So I would say it takes one month... To learn. . It doesn't matter to have the correct label on keys... You are not supposed to look at the keyboard anyway.

Cool, good to know. I figured the labeling wouldn't matter once you're comfortable with it — I just didn't know how much of a pain it is to learn if you have no reference for what key is where. I could imagine it would take a long time to really solidly learn where uncommon keys are, and I wouldn't want to be hunting around for them every time I need them.

Do you use Dvorak on mobile as well? Is it a pain to use QWERTY devices when you encounter them?

I learned Dvorak because I knew I would never work out the bad habits I had with QWERTY. Dvorak is a HORRIBLE layout for mobile, but I used it for about a month while learning Dvorak and it really helped. It’s horrible since you often type in mobile with one hand which means your fingers get tired quickly from moving between the sides of the keyboard. I’ve never really had issues going back to QWERTY keyboards (no more so than usual slight frustrations when moving between slightly different keyboards).

In the beginning your will be constantly hunting for keys, which will hurt, but it will get much better with practice in a few days. Just practice the way you naturally touch type. In a month you will be able to do it just as comfortably as you did before.

This kind of learning is procedural memory, it's like riding a bicycle, you don't forget it, you just get a bit rusty over time. You will be able to use both layouts.

It's not difficult at all to use qwerty. And I don't use Dvorak on mobile... Although I should probably try it.

When I was young, I have realized that I need a touchtyping on Latin layout (not my mother language but a mother language of Internets). I have analyzed some ways to my goal and realized that I do not want to learn qwerty aka typewriter aka layout for struggling, and discovered Dvorak. That was one of the wisest decision I have made during my pre-twenties, because if you are an oldtimer with qwerty in your muscle memory than you are too late for effectively using the most decent layout. BTW I can not touchtype on my mother language and do not see any reasons to use more than two fingers for that.

Not an online website, but I found my typing ability increased considerably after playing the typing-of-emacs game (https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TypingOfEmacs). Because the penalty for mistakes is extreme (losing 1 out of the 3 lives you have), it encourages you to type with perfect accuracy.

There's a 2-3 second timeout to motivate you to type fast. Also, it pulls words from the buffer you have open, so you can practice on a set of words that you use regularly. It starts with short words and gradually moves to longer and more complex words to see if you can keep up.

Does anyone else here not type in the home row? I feel like I do more of a hybrid pecking technique. Like, I don't type rigidly as I was taught in school. I type slower than someone who does use the home row properly but I feel I don't get any injuries either.

Juerd Waalboer's "Dvorak Keyboard Training": https://learn.dvorak.nl/

Of course, it will only teach you Dvorak, but then again, you did say that you wanted to type faster...

I think Dvorak is good for comfort.

I don't think my Dvorak is faster than my QWERTY. (About 100 vs 110 wpm on the casual typing speed test websites).

But Dvorak is absolutely more comfortable.

Back in 2007 I would've said try and sell something in World 2 on Runescape, but I guess that doesn't really apply anymore.

I type and play guitar faster when I wear arm warmers (the kind used by cyclists and runners). The muscles in your forearm are much more nimble when kept warm.

I have noticed that I type slower when my hands are cold, but never considered the impact of cold forearms. Will have to give this a try!

You will be surprised that there is a difference even when you aren't cold as such. You're sitting a comfortable room, wearing a T shirt. You feel perfectly fine, but your forearms disagree and you don't even know it.

Wearing some long-sleeved thing will make a difference, but that could make you hot; sports sleeves are a way of adding a layer just to your arms without making you hotter anywhere else.

https://monkeytype.com/

start using voice for typing, you can speak faster than you can type https://github.com/ideasman42/nerd-dictation

Why do you want to type faster?

I spend a lot of time on email, and I would be able to get more done faster if I could type faster/more accurately. I've also tried using TTS on my Mac, but I find it doesn't work well enough (mostly it's a pain to make corrections) to justify the switch.

I think even highly skilled typists usually don't exceed 130wpm or so, except for competitive typists that are copying texts. Maybe changing your writing style could give better gains?

keybr.com

Cool, I like lots of things about this. Is there any way to get it to use real words? My typing speed is about 20 WPM slower when typing gibberish, so I can't tell if practicing typing gibberish words is the most efficient way toward typing real words faster.

It's not total gibberish. It resembles real words decently. But there are sites around typing real words. I prefer http://colemak.academy which works better for 40 WPM, but keybr might be suited for when you're going for 100.

It's fine to be typing slower during practice. It's like how sports athletes will practice a pass or shot in artificial conditions, rather than play a full game.

Cool, thanks! One thing I really like about colemak academy is that it has you go back and correct errors, instead of just blowing past them. That's much more realistic for my everyday typing.

In terms of using real words: I don't mind that I'm typing slower per se, but I do notice when I do typing tests that involve real words, I have a certain muscle memory (at least in the common parlance — I assume it's actually more brain training) that allows me to type many long words quite quickly.

I assumed that it would be useful to improve my technique using real words, with a focus on the words that I'm not great at. I will be interested to see if typing gibberish words with similar patterns will lead to improvements in real world typing.

Typing tests with random words are garbage for testing your typing speed.

The discordant nature of random words just doesn't flow well and you end up stumbling (mentally) because of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com