• You are not logged in.

    2 days in

    • Started by Grey
    • 4 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 18-Sep-2006
    • Posts: 4

    Okay, I tried Dvorak for one day, and was pretty comfortable with the home row.

    Then I read wikipedia some more, found colemak, and decided to try it instead.

    My Qwerty speed: 60-80wpm

    After 2 days of Colemak practice:

    50wpm on the first practice test (STNE keys)

    20wpm on the second practice test (adding RI).

    13wpm overall, on online typing tests using all keys.

    One thing that I've noticed is on the second test I'm much MUCH slower at hitting my left-hand keys (especially S).  In fact even though R and I are the new keys, I'm hitting those faster than S.  This is frustrating to me and I find myself just doing the first test over and over since there's virtually no disparity in timing on that test (that's probably because I virtually have the first test memorized). 

    The fact that Dvorak is imbalanced in favor of the right hand is actually looking pretty nice to me right now...

    Will my left hand ever strengthen up to rival my right hand?  I mean I was already hitting the majority of keys with my left hand with QWERTY, and that doesn't seem to have strengthened it.

    Perhaps there should be a right-handed and a left-handed version?

    Last edited by Grey (18-Sep-2006 14:06:19)
    Offline
    • 0
    • Shai
    • Administrator
    • Reputation: 36
    • Registered: 11-Dec-2005
    • Posts: 423

    Colemak is already marginally biased towards the right hand, and that's without even taking into account the Space bar. There's already an experimental one-handed version of Colemak. I'm pretty sure your left hand will catch up with time, it's just a matter of practice. Putting more load on the right hand means increasing same-finger and finger distance, so it will only slow things down.

    Last edited by Shai (18-Sep-2006 19:34:14)
    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 18-Sep-2006
    • Posts: 4

    Day 3, practicing like 2-3 hours a day:

    56 wpm on the first exercise

    24 wpm on the 2nd

    19 wpm overall on various internet testing sites.  My RST (left hand) times do seem to be getting a lot better.

    One strange thing that I'm noticing is that as I practice throughout the day, my time doesn't get any faster really.  However, when I wake up the next day I'm immediately faster than the previous day.

    Last edited by Grey (19-Sep-2006 12:48:50)
    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 18-Sep-2006
    • Posts: 4

    11 days in, I'm at 42 wpm (adjusted).

    I have to look at the keyboard constantly to use the qwerty layout now.  =[

    Has anyone reached faster speeds with the colemak layout?  So far I haven't seen anyone explicitly say that they have.

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 05-Sep-2006
    • Posts: 40

    Im a month in, still equal or maybe a little bit faster than QWERTY, but error rate still higher..

    I think it actually has something to do with the fact that i repractised the touch method on the keyboard which makes me write a bit faster..

    Cant write at all using QWERTY anymore, thats for sure..

    Offline
    • 0