Improve your touch typing

Biggest annoyance with this software - backspace is, apparently, something that I alone exercise. If you type an incorrect letter, it simply doesn&#x27;t advance the cursor rather than advancing the cursor and marking the letter as incorrect. Since I am already a pretty good touch-typist, I routinely KNOW I have hit an incorrect key, hit backspace, and correct it and progress with the word.<p>However, very often I will do something like spelling &quot;icnorrect&quot; from feeling, then hitting backspace exactly eight times and re-type &quot;ncorrect&quot;... which is simply not supported by this software.

My complaint is that it will often give you words that are <i>nearly</i> English words (but not actually). If you really want to type quickly, you will sort of type one word at a time rather than one letter at a time (time yourself typing an English phrase rather than words composed of random letters). I kept getting errors because I would type the words my fingers thought was coming, not the actual non-word I was supposed to type.

Using this tutor was an incredibly frustrating experience for me. I blazed through all the letters until Q. After five minutes of typing &quot;squall&quot; and &quot;qual&quot;, my left hand hurt and I gave up.<p>Also, correcting doesn&#x27;t seem to work like any typing tutor or text editor I know of. Every time I hit backspace and typed the correct letter, it said I typed the wrong letter. Apparently, backspace acts like some weird double-backspace. You have to retype the letter <i>before</i> the mistyped one as well.

Their finger diagram makes the same mistake that most do: outward slanting finger columns of Q-A-Z, W-S-X, E-D-C, R-F-V, T-G-B.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;9X0nFgv.png" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;9X0nFgv.png</a><p>The Q-A-Z finger layout requires extremely un-ergonomic compromises: a bent left wrist and&#x2F;or using side-to-side finger movements rather than &quot;curls&quot;.<p>A simple switch to using the columns Q-A-Shift, W-S-Z, E-D-X, etc. puts your left hand and fingers into a far more comfortable position. Neutral inward-slanted wrists and naturally curling fingers. I suppose E-S-Z might be even better.<p>I&#x27;m very surprised that the &quot;standard&quot; Q-A-Z finger placement for the left hand is still taught. There is a far more comfortable alternative available on any hardware keyboard. I&#x27;m curious if there are any other W-S-Zers who type the same way I do.

On this webpage, in order to correct an incorrectly typed letter, you have to press backspace, type the previous letter again, then type the correct letter you meant to type before pressing backspace. This completely breaks the normal flow of typing. In order to acclimate to this, you will need to learn how to type incorrectly...

This is looking nice, but I am frustrated because I have yet to see what I think is a properly designed set of introductory exercises. IMO there are two big issues for people learning to touch type: learning where the keys are and developing the motor coordination to move the fingers from the home row to the non-home-row keys and back again. Every typing program I&#x27;ve seen seems to focus on the former and not the later.<p>This site teaches the letters &quot;eaint&quot; first. I think it&#x27;s better to introduce the home row first. Don&#x27;t worry that you can&#x27;t type much English with the home row (unless you&#x27;re using another layout like dvorak). Just get them good with different combinations of &quot;asdfjkl;&quot;. Then once you have that, you introduce new keys by having them practice the jump from the correct home row key typed with the same finger to the new key and back. Let&#x27;s say we&#x27;re introducing &#x27;e&#x27; next. The exercise would be something like this:<p>ded ede dde eed eded dede deeded edded ...<p>This gets them familiar with precisely the right motor recruitment pattern. The point of this exercise isn&#x27;t to achieve the absolute maximum speed. It is to exercise the movement pattern of moving a certain finger from the home row to the key and back. Obviously you need to make sure they&#x27;re keeping their hands on the home row and not typing d and e with two different fingers to go faster on this particular exercise. But that shouldn&#x27;t be hard to do in your instructions. You can start to dissuade this in your next exercises by bringing in the home row letters typed with the adjacent fingers.<p>fesd sefd sdfesd fdsefd ...<p>I think this kind of exercise pattern should be used to introduce <i>all</i> the keys. Once the student has established these motor patterns in the process of learning where each key is, then you can go on to English text. Of course you can put English into these exercises when possible, but not to the detriment of the main point which is motor movement patterns.<p>If you already know how to touch-type and are learning a new keyboard layout, then obviously you already know the motor recruitment patterns and the approach used by this web app is great.

Wish there was an option to pay to remove ads. I have adblock on and I get an nag ad saying &quot;View ad. Be upset. Keep us running. You may not like this ad, but it supports the developer and keeps this site free.&quot; which is fine but please offer me the ability to pay to remove them.<p>Nothing is more distracting when trying to learn touch typing than ads flashing all around.<p>I initially learned on TypingWeb.com (I think that is right) and keybr.com beats it in many ways. The extra book marklet to turn any web page into a lesson is the 1st, the 2nd is the ability to upload your own text.<p>A 3rd I would like is to give the URL of a Github repo and select a tag then you would be able to type every single file of the repo. It would keep track of your progress for that tag. You could even compete with others for typing say the entire Drupal 7.32 release etc.<p>I had bought a domain of doing something like this a while ago but only becuase nobody else had done it. keybr.com seems like it has what it takes to do this and I am going to just see if I can get the owner&#x2F;maintainer to do it instead!

I have been using keybr.com since I ordered my Ergodox and its been awesome, I have even made the top ten a few times. My typing speed have gone from 40wpm to 110wpm and you really notice it when programming or emailing or IM&#x27;s with coworkers. The next step is to fire it up while having a conversation and try to maintain good typing form while talking to someone.<p>Doing that slows me down to a snail&#x27;s pace, but its also something I find myself doing all the time as I work out code with others.

For programming practice, I&#x27;ve used typing.io (it was announced on HN a few years ago [1]). I&#x27;m especially error-prone on the right-pinky keys, which are critical when coding (enter, semi-colon, forward- and back-slash). Typing.io tends to work more of these keys in the code keys.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4419030" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4419030</a>

Best way to learn to touch type:<p>1) Buy a sliding under desk keyboard tray<p>2) Leave it under the desk while you type. Don&#x27;t slide it out<p>3) a few weeks&#x2F;months of pain<p>4) perfect touch typing<p>You will be shocked how often you were unconsciously looking down at the keyboard as you typed

This is a real throwback to many days spent &quot;playing&quot; Mavis Beacon in computer class. It&#x27;s interesting to see the breakdown in speed on a per key basis: it really makes you conscious of the keys between your hands when you are in the home row. However, no matter what happens I still have brain farts when trying to type out nonsensical words, or words that are close to real words but still nonsense. I got really locked up on &quot;ohioh&quot; (not &quot;onion&quot;) and the speed scores reflected that.

I have used Keybr for only a few hours and have already seen a big improvement in my wpm (compared to other touch typing resources I have tried).<p>The key feature is that it targets your weak keys and key combinations and forces you to practice those repeatedly.

Interesting, Twiddler uses this technology to teach you how to type on their chording keyboard: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;twiddler.tekgear.com&#x2F;tutor&#x2F;twiddler.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;twiddler.tekgear.com&#x2F;tutor&#x2F;twiddler.html</a>

On the off-chance anyone wants to do this with Victorian erotic fiction, I made a similar game a couple of weeks ago:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gentletouch.peterellisjones.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gentletouch.peterellisjones.com&#x2F;</a>

I would love to see this support numbers and symbols, as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that would play very nicely with the developer crowd.<p>I wonder if they just don&#x27;t fit as well into their pseudoword generation scheme. There&#x27;s an option to enable punctuation, but nothing for symbols or numbers. Not going after the full keyboard seems like a missed opportunity.

Thanks for building this web application. I think these should be improved for a more effective teaching experience:<p>1) The app should offer guidance on which finger should be used to reach each key. Initially learners are more open to developing wrong habits and using particular fingers (they feel more comfortable with) to reach keys.<p>2) There should be a better flow for communicating progress. What is my overall progress? Am I assessed for all the keys? what are my strengths &#x2F; weaknesses? what should I work on? etc.<p>3) I think there should be a language support. Typing words in a language become automatic as you do them more often, for example the stop words that come up very often in English are usually typed really fast by people, because they have memorized the sequence by having typed them thousands of times.

I would like to see an option to type in languages other that read from right to left. My English typing is alright but when I have to deal with foreign characters, Arabic or Hebrew, it really slows me down.<p>Is that a possibility, or would the algorithms and systems in place not work with those languages?

I know touch typing. My problem is correct fingering. I type fast but mainly use my index and middle fingers. How can I improve this?

Two things: for some reason when it first focused on the letter &#x27;Q&#x27; it made my hand sore (my speed also fell a lot). Not sure if there&#x27;s something ergonomically problematic with the early &#x27;Q&#x27; words or it&#x27;s just me or what.<p>The other thing I wonder is if that style of word display like speed readers use where each word shows up by itself in the middle might be more effective. There were definitely times that I felt like my line scanning was delaying somehow.

This might be of interest to people here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;addons.mozilla.org&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;firefox&#x2F;addon&#x2F;type-the-web&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;addons.mozilla.org&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;firefox&#x2F;addon&#x2F;type-the-web&#x2F;</a><p>I built this addon for people who want to improve their typing while reading the websites they usually do.<p>It lets you select some text (like the inspect element selector) and do a typing test starting at that point on the page.

It&#x27;s an interesting approach, and I feel like it&#x27;s onto something with the algorithm. Bit like the flashcard programs in that regard.<p>It might be worth generating words in a natural language structure. I don&#x27;t know about others but I tend to read a little ahead of what I&#x27;m typing. Pick up the words rather than the letters. When the words are fairly rare, (lots of these words are, at least for me,) and don&#x27;t seem to follow a linguistic structure, this reduces to reading letter by letter fairly quickly and then searching the string for the next letter.<p>Like, normally my brain would be going &#x27;This is a thing and my fingers are just filling in in the background. They&#x27;re not suffering from my conscious attention.&#x27;<p>And at the moment it&#x27;s going &#x27;o-r-g-o-t&#x27; ... &#x27;e-u-g-e&#x27; ... &#x27;g-e-r&#x27;

I learned to touch type using this website. Now I am learning Colemak there as well. There is also a setting for Dvorak and ability to enable punctuation and other characters.<p>I find it really good for practice. The not-quite-correctly-spelled words actually force me out of comfort zone and that is exactly what I need for practice.<p>Since English is not my native language I also use Type Racer but find that Keybr forces me to focus on typing <i>correctly</i> and fast better than other websites by giving me a typing score along with the speed measurement.<p>The statistics and the dark theme are also really nice features since I use this for hours.

Awesome service!<p>Pair with Das Keyboard for ultimate in masochistic fun:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.daskeyboard.com&#x2F;daskeyboard-4C-ultimate&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.daskeyboard.com&#x2F;daskeyboard-4C-ultimate&#x2F;</a>

Try <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.typingstudy.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.typingstudy.com</a> to improve your touch typing. it was very useful for me when I started using colemak and dvorak

Why do all typing programs force you to type in line with the text you are copying? Either one mistake propagates and you can ruin an entire line by double typing some letter or the thing blocks until you hit the correct one.<p>Why is there not just a sample text and a simple text box that you type the entire sample into? Then your product can be diffed against the source and an accuracy rating calculated? This actually matches the normal typing experience.

I keep getting:<p>&quot;Cannot read records from database Because: A mutation operation was attempted on a database that did not allow mutations.&quot;<p>and nothing loads past that.<p>Firefox 38.0.1 on Windows 7

Using this tool made me realize something; I don&#x27;t move my fingers from the home row in a traditional way anymore. Depending on the words I&#x27;m typing in typical English text, I have a tendency to use different fingers (and even different hands) for letters towards the center of the keyboard; whatever is easiest&#x2F;fastest for the words.<p>Did anyone else notice this going through the automated ramp up?

I like the way it builds up through the sequence of most common to least common (in English) letters ETAOIN... instead of focusing just on &quot;home row&quot; keys like Mavis Beacon used to, which I always found artificially hard because it meant lots of side-ways combinations.<p>Both of course have their limitations in terms of appropriate words or chunks however.

When I was in high school, my sister was learning to type because of a secretarial course she was taking. And there is a lesson to type &quot;the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog&quot;. This string will cover the A to Z. Do this thousand of times and I assure you, your typing will greatly improve, don&#x27;t need no software!

Also try GNU Typist <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gnu.org&#x2F;software&#x2F;gtypist&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gnu.org&#x2F;software&#x2F;gtypist&#x2F;</a>. I learned to touch type using this software around 2000. It was really good. Haven&#x27;t had to look at the keyboard after that.

This game was posted back to HN some time ago; I find it a lot more fun, if not as instructive.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;phoboslab.org&#x2F;ztype&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;phoboslab.org&#x2F;ztype&#x2F;</a>

Great analytics and interesting approach overall--what&#x27;s the deal with that 9px font-size everywhere though?<p>I might learn how to touch-type but I&#x27;m afraid I&#x27;ll lose my eyesight in the process.

Is anyone having problems with their ö,ä,ü&#x27;s, too? I cannot configure my keyboard in any fashion to recognize my german special characters. Is there a wy to fix this?

Is anyone use Vim without touch typing? I learned touch typing with typing.com course and the main reason was that I wanted to use Vim more efficient.

The graphs it can show you are good, but don&#x27;t tell you about your accuracy, which is probably my biggest problem with my own typing.

It would be phenomenal to be able to change the keyboard... This tool would make learning dvorak a whole lot easier.

HOW DOES IT KNOW I&#x27;M USING COLEMAK!

Pretty cool how I can emulate a different layout! Maybe I will finally convert to Dvorak one of these days.

Very neat tool. I especially like the analytics, and the heatmap of my hit&#x2F;miss ratio :)

I would love it if the multiplayer would eventually pair you with faster typers.

Used it for 20 minutes and bookmarked so I can use it more. Great tool!

Does touch typing make a difference in terms of comfort &#x2F; less stress on fingers &#x2F; being better for you?

It lost me when I saw those infinite number of bubbles for tutorial!

I&#x27;ll make do with physical keyboard, thanks.

typingclub.com is much better.

Interesting thing that I&#x27;ve noticed--not all programmers are touch-typists, but almost all serious gamers <i>are</i>.

Apparently I&#x27;m useless at touch typing.<p>I can barely break 15 words per minute on this thing without making mistakes after 30 minutes versus 86 wpm using my normal style, which involves me using my index and middle fingers and occasionally looking at the keyboard.<p>Shame, as I wouldn;t mind actually learning to touch type properly considering I&#x27;m a dev.

I don&#x27;t consider you a touch-typist unless you&#x27;re doing modal typing...as a programmer.