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From QWERTY to Colemak and touch typing

  • Started by derevon
  • 29 Replies:
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  • Registered: 03-Jul-2013
  • Posts: 33

wow, this is insane speed! Do you have any advice on how to achieve at least over 100WPM? Like for example do you read just the word your currently writing, or do you read a couple of words ahead, or any other tips?

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  • Registered: 09-Sep-2012
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I believe the key to typing fast is to memorize whole sequences of finger movements (most often words or parts of long words) so that you can type them with a negligible mental effort and thus free up the mind for planning finger movement sequences for the upcoming words.

Basically, when your fingers start typing a word you should ideally already have planned the sequence of movements for the whole word so your mind can focus entirely on the next word.

When I type some sequence of random letters my speed would be like 30-50 WPM. This is why unusual or difficult words tend to break the rhythm a lot as they have to be "micro-managed" (mental effort on each individual key).

Even if you don't have an exact word "pre-programmed and hardcoded" in your brain, it might be similar enough to the word or name you want to type to make it nearly as fast anyway. This, I guess is why many fast typists are able to type also very fast in foreign languages.

In the end it all comes down to practice and talent I guess. I believe it's also important to try to type as fast as possible when you type normally, and not to keep some kind of specific rhythm. Easy words should be typed fast and harder ones slower.

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  • Registered: 27-Jun-2013
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This is really impressive! For somebody who doesn't even use colemak in his day to day life being able to reach 150 WPM is just sick. Do you reckon that you'll ever use colemak on a day to day base, or you're guessing you're sticking to qwerty?

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  • Registered: 09-Sep-2012
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I think I will stick to Qwerty. I don't normally type a lot of text in my everyday life, and for me it's much more convenient using Qwerty when I just need to type a little text and not have to worry about correct starting position for the fingers and such things and I'm more accurate and have to spend only a minimum of mental effort on it as I've been using it all my life. And there's the keyboard shortcuts... (I know there are also ways around this). Also Colemak is not so good for my native language Swedish as I need to use Alt-combinations for some common letters. I realise I could easily modify the layout and put those characters in more accessible positions, but I'd rather not.

Most of the problems above could of course be overcome with time and practice, but for me it's enough to have Colemak as a backup method in situations where I would for example need to type large amounts of text in English.

In the end, I'd definitely recommend Colemak to anyone who does large amounts of typing in English. Especially to those who don't already know touch typing.

I think the best way to start is to use some typing tutor like https://www.sense-lang.org/typing/tutor/keyboarding.php and then once all letters are learned, move on to hi-games.net or some other similar site.

Also I wouldn't really recommend "cold-turkey" as it's very hard and could easily demotivate you enough to quit. Try to reach a decent speed and accuracy in Colemak before you make the switch (assuming you still want to make it).

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  • From: Viken, Norway
  • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
  • Posts: 5,345

Check my sig topic and links therein for discussions on Swedish (++) Colemak. You shouldn't use the AltGr solutions from the standard Colemak!

Maybe the PKL package isn't optimal at your typing speeds (if you're on Windows). In that case, it isn't that hard to make a proper Windows install package (but you wouldn't get the Extend mappings that I love so much, obviously). You say you'd rather not, but I'll just throw it out there nevertheless. :)

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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