I had touch typed in Qwerty 15 years before switching to Colemak, and I think that's worth it. Switching again is not as hard as the first blind typing learning, since you are already prepared.

Have you tried to blindfold yourself, then type? Most people are unconsciously peeking at the keyboard when typing.

Here are the photo of a typing contest in Paris 1940

I strongly suggest you switch. The E and R keys on QWERTY are really really broken in their position.

As far as typing with 3 fingers goes, you are really missing out on the comfort of resting your palms when typing. I find this particularly comfortable on my Thinkpad.

Further, you really start  falling in love with typing when you roll over the keys when typing words that have characters next to each other. Typing words like burst is such fun because it actually gets typed as b-u-rst where the last three keys are pressed in one fluid roll. This happens when you use any of th following ar-ra, rs-sr, st-ts, ne-en, ei-ie, oi-io. Yes that covers a lot of words. The effect of alternating between your left and right hands more than you normaly do with QWERTY is fun too. Imagine typing a word like "typing" which goes l-r-l-r-l-r. :D Bliss, right?

That REALLY useless caps-lock becomes a REALLY useful backspace key.

Finally, when you forget to lock-screen when you leave the desk to get a cup of coffee, none of your pesky friends are going to be able to type anything meaningful into your system. :D Imagine their frustration when they wanted to update my FB-status to "I really suck" and all they got was "U pfaiij rlce"

I started out at something around 3wpm. Yes. That slow. At the end of one week, I was at around 10-12 wpm. But by the end of the month I was at 30wpm. Now, I have been using Colemak for over 2 years. I can type at around 75 wpm easily. This is much higher than my old QWERTY speed which was around 60wpm (I used a 3-fingers-on-each-hand technique too).

I do not know whether this is just my mind playing tricks on me, but I also have a much more comfortable experience typing on Colemak. I used to have an ache in my left had with QWERTY and that pesky thing isn't troubling me anymore.

It's worth it! But if speed is your *only* concern you may be frustrated. You'll be slow for a while (even using Tarmak), and your end speed may be 10 WPM faster but maybe you could've achieved that on QWERTY if you put in the same amount of training?

For me Colemak is more about comfort/ergonomics and flow. It feels good to type on. I'm faster with Colemak than I was with QWERTY, but I don't think it's only because of layout magic. ;)

Thanks for all the replies. Normally I would write an exclamation mark here, but sadly i can't find it. I type blind with three fingers, so I don't hunt and peck. I use my right middle and indexfinger and my left inderfinger. I am able to type at about 90 characters per minute in Dvorak now and the change is actually easier than expected. I like typing in dvorak better than typing qwerty, so I guess I'll continue using Dvorak till I am up to my old speed again.

Haven't changed the location of the keys yet, and don't think I will. I really like not being able to try to sneak at the keys when typing.

You should consider transitioning (from your 60wpm qwerty touchtyping) via tarmak.  We need more guinea pigs! ;)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Colemak/comment … ng_qwerty/

Wow. It's very good start. Hopefully you can endure this for 3 weeks, after that the switching transition will be much better.

My current top is about 125 CPM and avging about 100 CPM. If I'd be able to keep going like this I'd be really satisfied. Also added a home made paint to keep things interesting.

Keyboard layout is pretty good for Dutch language.
Top 9 most frequent used all on home row and EN roll is extremely common. Only complaint is location of the J key. And KLN BHJ is too much for one finger in Dutch.

Edit... just tried to see how my qwerty speed was doing. Managed 81 WPM(!),100% accuracy with three fingers on first try. Switched back to colemak, and did not notice any decline. Just a normal 22 WPM. Interesting..

Problem is that about 60% off all J's used is used in the IJ combo so switching with the Y slows down because its the same finger. I'll think of some other possibilities.

BTW, over 74% of Dutch is typed on home row, even more than English!

6 July

7 July

8 July, just started typing for today.

These are my maximums, not my averages. Avg is a couple of WPM lower.

Note to self, July is a shitty word to type.

don't feel the need to return to qwerty anymore! I'm sure I did the hardest part.

Just a shame that the community isn't bigger.

--> I think that's not shameful at all. Switching is quite tough for most of us, and not all people type so much in their work in order to justify for going through such hellish experience. Only the brave and strong have to apply.

I really don't think it's that bad not using tarmak. I have read about it before starting to learn codemak and I decided to do it cold turkey nontheless. At around 40 WPM it isn't annoyingly slow anymore, and from there on you can use it on a day to day basis.

I do notice though that typing in Enlish is quite a lot slower than Dutch. Maybe because they have different combo's and a different letter frequency.

Anyways, the results of the last two days:

I didn't use the computer at all on 10 and eleven, so no results for those days.

12 July

13 July

The position of the J still really bothers me though. I might replace it with the : or the q.

Just placed it on q, feels really good now.

I think the q position is one of the worse spots (which is why I'm thankful it's used by a rare character).

The good spots are probably the green ones in the workman diagram:

as well as the two middle keys (which I'm not sure why workman dislikes, but whatever).