I was wondering for those mediocre typists [Like me} typing around 40 - 60 WPM Qwerty.
How long did it take to equal the old qwerty speed and did you end up
exceeding it.
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40-60ish WPM Qwerty - How long to catch up or exceed
- Started by TwoLeftThumbs
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looking back through my colemak experiences thread i can see it took me 6 months to hit ~55wpm, i.e. my previous qwerty speed
that was jan 2014
i am faster and more accurate again now, about 70-80wpm now on a good day
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bph said:
looking back through my colemak experiences thread i can see it took me 6 months to hit ~55wpm, i.e. my previous qwerty speed
that was jan 2014
i am faster and more accurate again now, about 70-80wpm now on a good day
Did you go cold turkey from Day 1. Gradual, or use Tarmak.
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I think I can say quite safely that almost all slow-mid QWERTY typists have become faster with a change to a more optimized layout! (The same is true for fast typists, btw!) I may have heard of one who didn't.
I was a ≈55 WPM QWERTY typist, then a ≈60 WPM Dvorak typist for a year or two, and now I'm a 65–75 WPM Colemak typist. I switched in 2007, so it's taken me a while but I beat my former Dvorak speed well within the year as I remember it.
I didn't use Tarmak as I had to invent it first. ;-) BPH is one of the Tarmak stories; I think I have a quote from him in my Tarmak topic.
Last edited by DreymaR (31-Jan-2017 13:06:27)
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yes i can confirm the road to colemak was paved with tarmak
using tarmak seems a no-brainer to me and my top tip would be to take your time, i.e. don't skip the 97%/40wpm rule for moving through the stages
Last edited by bph (31-Jan-2017 10:14:42)
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here's the thing:
40-60wpm is so average that there is nowhere to go but up
most people typing 40-60wpm will see loads of improvement as soon as they start actually FOCUSING on getting better at typing. it doesn't matter what you do. change to colemak, dvorak, or even stick with qwerty. but because you've now started analyzing your weaknesses, and deliberately working at them, then you will improve.
yes, colemak might have inherent advantages over other layouts. but switching to colemak isn't the reason people got faster. they got faster because they actually learned to touch type, or they actually learned to diagnose their problem letter combinations, or they actually practiced drilling particular words or n-grams to memory. they could've always done these things previously, but they only had a reason to now, and thats why they're seeing results now.
its like when an athlete gets injured and comes back stronger and faster than he was previously. likely, he originally just built up his skills organically without much focus on it. but after getting injured, now he has to be very mindful of every movement, and actually train the specific muscles, and practice the movements. all things he hadn't done before because he didn't need to beacuse of his natural ability. but then he does all of this hard work, and what do you know, he performance skyrockets
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Quite, misterW. And as mentioned, the same has been the case for fast typists (≈100 WPM) after a layout change.
One may easily speculate that any optimized layout is so much better than QWERTY that an improvement would be expected, but it's still mostly conjecture. :-)
One interesting thing about learning is that it should ideally be varied. So, if you change layout you may get a new stab at learning better habits and a fresh experience which will help you to learn better. I guess?
On the other hand, I think that switching a lot would be confusing and counterproductive. But what do I know.
Last edited by DreymaR (31-Jan-2017 15:52:02)
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^ yes to all of that
:thumbsup:
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Given these insights, one might conclude that the holy grail isn't to find the super-duper-optimal layout at any cost, but to switch to a better layout in general.
Which again means that it's better to switch to a layout that's easier to learn but probably as good, than one which is very hard to learn and maybe a little bit better?
I still wouldn't recommend most people to switch to Minimak. I do think that after a while n-gram statistics in particular play a part, and by then it's worth it to be with a really good layout.
It's no surprise that I consider Colemak(CurlAngleWide) to be a near-perfect alternative, but duh – I'm obviously biased as hell. :-D
Last edited by DreymaR (31-Jan-2017 16:14:24)
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