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How to get better?

  • Started by glauber
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Hello, i'm going on about 6 months of Colemak now. My main motivation for switching was re-onset of wrist pains that were not going away with ergonomic keyboards. It seems to be helping.

I wasn't very good at Qwerty to start with, maybe 40 wpm. After a lot of struggle, i increased my Colemak speed to 30 wpm, 40 wpm, and now 50 wpm. It seems to take 2 months to reach each of these tableaus. I still have a few qwerty keystrokes interfering with my typing, especially the S (R in Colemak) and G (D in Colemak). I also have a problem with my right hand moving out of the home position (resulting in all wrong keys). I think this happens because of mouse usage (right hand has to move away from the keys).

Is there any recommended way to increase typing speed and accuracy?

Thanks,

glauber

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Your current Colemak speed is already exceeding your Qwerty speed by 10wpm. I think that's quite close to the maximum speed you can reach.

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  • From: Viken, Norway
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First, congrats on choosing Colemak and improving your typing!

I *don't* think that's close to the maximum speed you can reach! How can one know that based on so little evidence? ;)

The recommended ways to increase typing speed and accuracy at your level would be whatever suits you. I played typing games (Typing of the Dead!) and after a while switched to just typing. Then I typed a book or two using Amphetype which helped my flow and comfort and brought a slight increase in both accuracy and speed as a bonus. You can also train a list of common words with Amphetype if you're really keen on improving your speed, especially once your general speed is getting decent.

You could just keep typing. As long as you type comfortably and stay somewhat mindful about your habits, it will help.

Last edited by DreymaR (07-Jun-2013 15:18:44)

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Tony_VN said:

Your current Colemak speed is already exceeding your Qwerty speed by 10wpm. I think that's quite close to the maximum speed you can reach.

As good as it gets, then? :-]

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DreymaR said:

The recommended ways to increase typing speed and accuracy at your level would be whatever suits you. I played typing games (Typing of the Dead!) and after a while switched to just typing. Then I typed a book or two using Amphetype which helped my flow and comfort and brought a slight increase in both accuracy and speed as a bonus. You can also train a list of common words with Amphetype if you're really keen on improving your speed, especially once your general speed is getting decent.

Thanks! Amphetype looks cool; i'll give it a shot.

g

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  • From: Malmö, Sweden
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If I were you I would stop worrying about speed at this point and go on with my normal assignments. It will slowly increase by itself  and you should have no problems reaching 80+ words per minute in a matter of months.

Posted without the aid of a rodent.

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Anyone want to address the homing issue?

Excuse me for asking, but how big are your nubs?

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vaskozl said:

If I were you I would stop worrying about speed at this point and go on with my normal assignments. It will slowly increase by itself  and you should have no problems reaching 80+ words per minute in a matter of months.

Stop worrying and start typing!

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pinkyache said:

Anyone want to address the homing issue?

Excuse me for asking, but how big are your nubs?

:-] My main work keyboard has easily located nubs. My home keyboard and laptop keyboard, not so good.

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Thanks all, this has all helped. I realized that accuracy, not speed, is my main problem. My accuracy averages at 96-97%, and that's not good enough, because one error is enough to throw me off into a cascade of frantic backspaces and new errors. So i'm concentrating on slowing down and trying to get it right the first time.

I like Amphetype.

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glauber said:

My accuracy averages at 96-97%, and that's not good enough...

It's not good enough? Uhmm, 96-97% is really good. That's one mistake every 20 words...  So if that is your actual accuracy you shouldn't be bugging yourself at all.

Last edited by vaskozl (08-Jun-2013 18:54:27)

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Common wisdom here says you should aim for 98%.  It also helps to have an easily accessible backspace key, either colemak's default caps lock or an altgr combo (I use altgr+f), both for speed and so that it's less likely to mess up moving your hand all over.

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It is ironic that when you consciously, voluntarily type slower with greater accuracy, you will eventually type faster.

Last edited by Tony_VN (09-Jun-2013 05:46:44)
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Typing slow to type faster...

It's pretty sweet when you get to the point that you can control the ebbs and flows of your typing rate.

I do find that if I slow down, and are more deliberate, I'm a little harder on the keys, and that's more tiring for my fingers.

But somewhere on the forum I did try and pace myself at about 1 character per second, and it's an interesting exercise.

Typing faster can in someways feel lighter and easier.  Though trying to go too fast can be tiring and straining too.  It's hard getting the balance right.

I'm not the fastest typist around by any means.  (but it's creeping up, I've finally joined the 80+ wpm club in typeracer).

I like to practice  with popular words and verbs, words that follow patterns and some more trying exercises: like random characters, and alphabetical sentences.

The last two mentioned above: I think are good technical exercises, and you always feel better going back to normal texts afterwards.

What really bores me to tears, is writing out text with lots of punctuation, initial caps and quotes.  But sadly a lot of texts follow that pattern.

My reasoning in choosing the popular word lists, is that they form the main corpus of most texts, so you can practice something like the most frequently occuring words/verbs/nouns (find lists on the web - and take say the the top thousand), get them down pat, and it just makes typing that much easier.

Typing out some weighty tome might be a little trickier - and while it makes for good practice doing a lot of typing, you'll hardly ever type some words.  However that's not to say that it might not be fun.

Last edited by pinkyache (09-Jun-2013 06:19:32)

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I have been using the Colemak layout on for quite sometime now. I still can't type a single word (even slowly) without constantly making mistakes. How can I get more accurate in it. Its making it difficult for me to type properly at work or add stuff to my blog.
According to the website, Colemak is intended to help you write blogs as fast as you can think (or so Shai does claim), but I'm having too much of a difficulty typing a single word without making a mistake.
Its taking me an age just to write this. I wonder whether you would be able to understand anything I post if I decided not to correct any of the mistakes I made... haha.

Last edited by knightjp (16-Jun-2013 22:07:53)
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I don't know about "as fast as you can think" (that's more stenography's department), but you're right in that that typing state after a few months is a bit worrying.

Can you still type in qwerty?  At this point it might even be worth it to switch back to qwerty, get comfortable with it, then retransition via tarmak.


Otherwise, and correct me if I'm wrong, this sounds a little bit like bad muscle memory.  Assuming you already have an internal map of the layout after these months, what you need to do is consult that map for every single letter, and don't rely on muscle memory at all.  Eventually, the new muscle memory will replace the old one, but only transition slowly if you're sure it's not corrupted.

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I don't know about speed. My problem with it, is probably having to retype every word. So for me accuracy is more important. (You have no idea how hard it is for me to type this right now)

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I remember similar problem from my Qwerty learning days. I was hitting wrong keys all the time. The thing that helped me "reprogram" my muscle memory were "rhythmic exercices".

I used a software metronome, to beat steady rhythm, it was 60 bpm.
I started to type (gtypist typing drills), one keypress for one beat.
I used a "throw away" blank keyboard (self made, labels wiped off with acetone).

I intentionally started slowly, I had more than enough time to type precisely. I cranked up speed, only when I was sure I could repeatedly type with 99% accuracy. What ever you do, DO NOT look at your keyboard, visual feedback is harmful to acquiring or reprogramming muscle memory.

Relearning can be more effective if you use spherical (DSA) keycaps instead of cylindrical keycaps. But this is for mechanical keyboards only. Spherical keycaps have smaller top areas, you need to strike them more precisely in the centre.

Last edited by ksm123 (18-Jun-2013 09:38:45)
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I would *not* try going back and then through Tarmak. I'd just play typing games and maybe amphetype. Good typing games like Typing Of The Dead train various aspects of your typing.

And yes, accuracy is key. I've used TypingMaster which, albeit QWERTY-centric is good for training.

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I'm using a Microsoft Ergonomics 4000 keyboard (its the one with the split keyboard) . I use a normal HP keyboard at the office. Do you think this is the cause of me not being able type properly?
I bought the Ergonomic keyboard thinking that it would help me learn the layout since it makes easy to divide the keyboard properly in between the hands and also elevates a bit of the strain (since the keyboard is kept slightly off centre to the left when kept in the normal position)...
But so far, the truth has been the opposite.

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When I switched to Colemak, I keep my accuracy over 96% before moving to a new key. 98% is ideal.

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Tony_VN said:

When I switched to Colemak, I keep my accuracy over 96% before moving to a new key. 98% is ideal.

Are you talking about a typing tutor? I downloaded one that teaches Colemak. Its pretty good and gives you realistic goals.
Maybe I need to get myself another Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. I changed the angle of the keyboard using the attachment that kinda elevates it and makes it more flat. Its seem pretty much more comfortable now. But I still need a whole load of improvement.
The crazy thing is I started learning proper touchtyping on Dvorak and I got pretty good at it within a month. After that I changed to Colemak and I've been using it cold turkey for a while now and still I keep making so many mistakes.

Last edited by knightjp (19-Jun-2013 11:31:08)
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@knightjp: I used TypeFaster to learn Colemak lesson by lesson.

Moving from Dvorak to Colemak while Qwerty skills are still fresh, is quite tough and difficult.

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Tony_VN said:

@knightjp: I used TypeFaster to learn Colemak lesson by lesson.

Moving from Dvorak to Colemak while Qwerty skills are still fresh, is quite tough and difficult.

I never touch typed before I started using the Dvorak. Before that I used my own method hunt & pick method. Dvorak was a bit of a frustration in the 1st few days but soon got incredibly easy fast.

I'm having trouble with Colemak though. Its seems to be getting easier; but not easy enough. :P

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No pain no gain. Of course switching experience should be not easy, otherwise Colemak would be the de facto standard by now.

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