Well, I assume that you've made the first steps, such as learning how to touch type. (Where you use all of your fingers, and your thumbs to type, and without looking.)

Once you have that down and accurate, which took me a couple of weeks when I started typing. Just keep typing and practicing. Every chance you get just type more.

After a while you'll notice that you're typing faster, simply through practice.

Other than that there are plenty of tutorial websites around the Internet such as here, that explain finger placement nicely, and will introduce new keys with every tutorial.

Thanks a lot ! I know how to touch type and my average speed is around 35wpm, I want to make it around 60-70 .. any tips on that ? Thanks in advance :)

Just practice a lot 99% of your speed comes from practice.

My speed comes from the fact that I've practiced touch typing since I was 9 years of age. And I'm 21 now. (I didn't practice every day though, of course.)

If you practice daily for a few weeks you should start seeing speeds aproaching the 60-70 range. The difficult stuff is getting it past 100wpm. (As that was my brick wall for the last few years).

Tell you the truth the main reason why I practice on sites like this anymore is just to make sure my skills don't get rusty.

If you want to know what the last 1% of your speed is. It's a good keyboard. If you find yourself a mechanical keyboard which is to your liking that would improve your chances of being a quick typist quite a lot. Because the keys move more freely and it's a lot easier to hear/learn when your key actuates. Rather than having to tap the key all the way to the keyboard.

Even then, a good keyboard in general is a good investment for a touch typist, since I have come across keyboards in my past that literally half my ability to type quickly.

Hello everybody ;-)

What vfdavis said is all correct, but I thought I'd add a bit of tips of my own since my start at touch typing was more similar to your's than her's was. I came to this site when I had just learned touch typing from scratch at the age of 22. I was at 30 wpm and touch typing still felt very awkward and alien to me.


1. Try to practice every day, but don't practice more than 20 minutes in one sitting. Concentration is key, and it will drop fast in the beginning. Don't try to push through it, as this might grind in bad habits. Even if you're not practicing 20 minutes yet, if you feel as though you're making more mistakes than usual, stop. You can practice more than once a day, though, just don't force yourself through a marathon.

2. If your schedule can just fit one training session, try to do it right before you go to bed. Sleeping directly after practicing a new skill accelerates learning.

3. Another way to pratice even without a keyboard: if you're sitting in a lecture, or watching the news on TV or something like that, try to visualize typing what you hear. You really have to visualize your fingers hitting key caps, though, just imagining letters won't help.

4. Focus on accuracy. Your fingers are already fast, you don't need to practice speed; what you need is practicing movement patterns. Being as accurate as you can be will enable you to bump the speed up gradually without making more mistakes, but it will take time. Trying to be super fast will just cause you to become sloppy, make more mistakes and turn out to be even slower. You'll also develop bad habits that will be hard to unlearn once you've gotten used to typing sloppily. Try to aim for 95% accuracy or more, even if this means you have to slow down a bit from the speed you're at now. It will pay off, I promise!

5. One more thing: Never, ever look at your keyboard. If you miss a key, try to feel your way to it using the bumps on J and F. Take your time, don't be sloppy, don't be hasty, even if you were about to beat your personal best; it's not worth it.


Training like this, I got from 30 to 70 wpm in about two weeks. I had a lot of time on my hands though (I think I did 5 or more training sessions a day), so don't fret if your progress seems slower.

Thanks a lot.. Vfdavis :)

Thanks a lot ! Kai :) I will try my best .. And I'll defo try no.3 tip tomorrow during lecture.haha

You should just try your best. When I first started typing I was horrible. Now I am better and getting faster every time I practice. You should do the same.

I agree with them all practice is key but what also helped me was I enrolled in a college typing class that broke down the home row keys to start and build from there. It was worth it. Only reason I am a fast typer now a days is because my job in the Navy is a yeoman. I am typing anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day with breaks for food and leasure of course. Just find time daily to practice a small part of the keys at a time and you will build speed and accuracy in not time.

I am not sure if this affects some of you but when it comes to 6+ letter words it helps if I all ready know how to spell the letter. Because my mind already knows what keys to hit next... Also goes the the other way though if I do not know how to spell the world it stumps me for a split second. Just enough to make me have to backspace.. So in short I think being able to spell or have a decent vocabulary also could play a part in faster typing.

That is a very good observation, I haven't thought about that but it makes perfect sense and holds true for me, too. Especially when you're typing something you read from a screen, it really slows you down if you have to dissect a word letter by letter, so being able to recognize a word in the blink of an eye and knowing how to spell it without giving it another look is a crucial skill for typing longer words.

Somewhat related anecdote: I actually type some words in my head if I have to check whether they're spelled correctly (I proofread English texts for some friends from time to time). Example: beautiful. My brain occasionally forgets the 'e', but my muscle memory never does.

Focus on accuracy! The speed will take care of itself, once the accuracy is almost 100%

thanks you for the advice :D

Oh and if you are just starting to learn to touch type properly, don't make the mistake of typing Qwerty. Instead, head over to the Colemak forums and start learning that (or the workman layout). It may be a little faster, but importantly, Colemak is MUCH more pleasant to write because of the key positions, and drastically reduces the risk of repetitive strain injury. When typing English, the fingers move on average 2.2 times longer on QWERTY than they do on Colemak.

You should just try your best. When I first started typing I was horrible. Now I am better and getting faster every time I practice. You should do the same.

Will from http://onlinedataen…

Besides memorizing the keyboard, you must use the right fingers to hit all the keys, use the same finger to hit certain letters in the same column, etc. As for reaching the 60-70 wpm range, you will probably only get there if you have great timing and reaction time in addition to using the right techniques.

Really? Having tried Colemak back when I started, it just felt awkward. Even at the point where I reached 60wpm back then. To this day, I much prefer QWERTY.

Interesting! That just goes to show that people are in fact different. What do you prefer about the QWERTY layout? (Just for information, I use a version of Colemak that puts the D and H on the bottom row, as they are hard to reach in vanilla Colemak).

I think that it might have something to do with the fact that I'm left handed. I do really enjoy typing with my left hand more than I do with my right hand.

They're not joking when they talk about how you use your left hand a lot more on the QWERTY layout.

My hands aren't exactly small either, thus moving down a row, and moving all the way up to the number row isn't that big of a deal for me. Of course, it would be unfair to compare based on the number row. Since both QWERTY and almost all other types of keyboards have pretty much identical number rows. (Aside from symbol keys.)

As far as I'm aware the version of Colemak that you mentioned didn't exist when I tried it. You could correct me on that (it was 2005 when I started).

I actually enjoy having my hands move around a lot as I type, as silly as that may sound.

If at this point a better keyboard layout came about, I don't think I'd be able to adapt to it anymore anyway. I do consider myself lucky, however. Since almost all IMEs are written exclusively for QWERTY keyboards, I don't have to relearn how to type every time I want to pick up a language that has a non-phonetic alphabet.

I also keep a half-qwerty keyboard layout installed, incase something happens that causes me to have to type with one hand. It's easy to get used to, since it's just a mirrored qwerty keyboard. (Unlike how Dvorak completely changes the layout, I don't know how Colmak handles one handed typing either.)

tl;dr Benefits are lingual compatibility (I have a US-international layout and Google Japanese IME installed)
Software compatibility (I don't have to reconfigure for games.)
And, at this point, personal preference.

U need practice, practice and once again practice!
Here http://www.ratatype…