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    My introduction (and questions?)

    • Started by Fusey
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    • Registered: 30-Nov-2008
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    30-Nov-2008 16:33:41#1 My introduction (and questions?)

    Hello everyone!
    First of all, please accept my apologies for my poor English as I am living in Germany with my native language being Russian.
    I am 19 years old and started typing regularly when I was 14 years old or so.
    On that hi-games.net typing test I tend to score 105 wpm, 66 finger repeats and 12.95 metres travelled on average. That is, typing QWERTZ (German Keyboard). I am also not used to typing in English or using an English keyboard. I estimate my typing speed in German at being about 120 wpm. Accuracy isnt really a problem (i think its something about 95%).
    Reading about colemak (and having even completed the first 3 lessons of the 12 steps program) I am really intrigued, however I am still hesitating.
    The points of interests are the following:
    - I am using a German keyboard and typing 80% German, 20% English
    - Typing QWERTZ doesn't exhaust me at all
    - I never learned a system and just picked it up somehow.. I feel like im using only 6 fingers to type (and also a very strange way to do so...); for example, I mistype qwertz quite often.
    - I started Piano when i was 5 and quit it at 12.
    - My aim is a high speed (about 150-180 wpm would be fantastic albeit not realistic) as, as mentioned before, accuracy isnt really a problem so far

    So, all in all, would it be worth switching to Colemak as learning it seems awkward and it isnt really optimized for the German language? Also, I am afraid of losing my QWERTZ skills which are quite intuitive so far. My hands feel what they are typing, I am not even required to think much. Its like they behave on their own, for instance, I am hitting the backspace key before I even know I made a mistake.

    Thank you in advance for your answers.

    Edit: I did the keybr.com test on qwertz with a randomly generated, german text, scoring 123wpm and 2705 points. I am sure I could type faster and score higher if the words would be known to me and not entirely random.
    Is there really a possibility for me to top that speed with colemak? I am talking about an increase of 30-50%

    Last edited by Fusey (30-Nov-2008 17:16:18)
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    • Registered: 27-Apr-2008
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    30-Nov-2008 22:22:47#2 Re: My introduction (and questions?)

    Hi Fusey. As you've said, Colemak is primarily designed for English usage. As you are clearly quite happy, and not uncomfortable using QWERTZ, you should probably continue using that. Colemak will not magically propel you to 150 wpm. Chances are you would become frustrated using Colemak as you may take some time to match your QWERTZ speed.

    Alternatively, you could just give it a try for a couple of months. It's up to you.

    "It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in." - Earl of Chesterfield

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    30-Nov-2008 23:08:57#3 Re: My introduction (and questions?)

    Thank you kindly for your answer, simonh!
    As I mentioned, I am quite willing to invest a large amount of time into learning colemak, the only question is if the possible benefits (higher wpm) will outweigh the disadvantages (mainly the loss of skill with qwertz and the loss of being able to type on other computers..).
    I have read through almost all the documented experiences of other users and did not find an example of anyone who exceeded the ability of typing with qwertz.
    However, I am quite aware that most people have years, if not decades of experience with qwertz, not colemak. Are there really no people who have years of experience with colemak/dvorak/other layouts who can tell about their experiences?
    Or did I overlook something?
    Anyway, I will try colemak either way the next weeks, I guess praxis is better than theory ;)
    In regards,
    Fusey.

    Edit: just downloaded typefaster to be able to keep track of my progress as I decided to learn colemak. Cant hurt having alternatives and from the theory of it, colemak is by far superior in any aspect.
    Sigh.. This is my last test on QWERTY using TypeFaster and the final lesson (Common words):
    Accuracy (allows backspace): 100.00 percent
    True Accuracy: 98.07 percent
    Keystrokes per minute: 543.16
    Words per minute (for this lesson): 108.98

    I will keep this updated, just in case.

    Last edited by Fusey (30-Nov-2008 23:39:50)
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    • From: Horsham, West Sussex, UK
    • Registered: 11-Jun-2007
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    01-Dec-2008 01:06:21#4 Re: My introduction (and questions?)

    You're most likely to see an increase in speed with Colemak if you are a hunt-and-peck typist to start off with. If you can type at 100+ words per minute you aren't likely to see much, if any, benefit in terms of speed. However, your accuracy is likely to improve.

    It's not difficult to learn Colemak by adopting a "qwerty by day/Colemak by night" approach in the initial stages. Don't abandon qwerty outright though -- I find that alternating between the two layouts is (a) more comfortable in the long term, and (b) necessary if you have to type on other people's computers or rdp into various servers. It's actually fairly easy to achieve and retain fluency in both qwerty and Colemak, since the two layouts have a lot in common.

    http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=16

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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    01-Dec-2008 01:43:36#5 Re: My introduction (and questions?)

    http://folk.uio.no/obech/Files/Keyboard … encies.zip

    In this archive is found an Excel sheet I made that may help you determine how good Colemak is for, for instance, 80% German and 20% Εnglish.

    It isn't hard to beat the QWERT# on optimisation, even if it's done for another (Western) language it seems.

    I'd learn Colemak if I were you, if for nothing else than because it's fun and cool! You sound dedicated enough to do it.

    Since you'll be having a 102-key board I suggest you move the ZXCVB to the left and put either ß or maybe ü on the old B key, similar to what I did (I'm Norwegian so for me it was necessary to fit in æøå). If you make the old B key your 'ß' key, then I'd put öäü on AltGr and []\ if you type most English - but since you type most German I'd move the []\{}| to AltGr instead and have äöü on those keys base. Other than that, I recommend using the 'standard' (US) layout rather than the German one for punctuation if the German one is as hopeless as the Scandinavian one - it really helps with some things like coding and writing English. Many apps use the easily reached symbols from the US layout.

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

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    • From: Belgium
    • Registered: 26-Feb-2008
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    01-Dec-2008 09:40:01#6 Re: My introduction (and questions?)

    Привет Fusey!

    With Russian being your native language, you may also be interested in my Rulemak keyboard layout which is Colemak's Cyrillic twin. :-)

    I've only implemented it for X11 (UNIX/Linux) so far, but I'm working on a PKL (Windows) implementation, too.

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    01-Dec-2008 18:58:27#7 Re: My introduction (and questions?)

    Hey, thanks for all the answers again!

    @jammycakes: Yeah, I am definitely picking up colemak (lesson 4 atm) and it is fun to learn. Also, doing those rolls feels like magic :p

    @Dreymar: thanks for the tips on remapping the keys, but learning the punctuation for me is too much of a hassle. I simply decided to use colemak for whenever I need to type english and qwertz for German. Also, I made a mistake. Actually, 80% of what I type is English.

    @ghen: Unfortunately, I can not type in Russian, nor is my writing ability very good, but thanks a lot for your help.

    And no, unfortunately, this text was not typed with colemak as I aim on first completing all those frustrating 12 lessons of doom.
    Take care!

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