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Qwerty to Colemak: Daily experience

  • Started by Tony_VN
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  • From: Viken, Norway
  • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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You're right Jin, it does make sense that you could type fast with Colemak. But that's intuition and not yet a fact. The fact is that there are a few really fast Colemak typists and a lot of really fast QWERTY typists and it's impossible to determine at this point what works best judging by speed alone! Of course the fastest ones are QWERTY typists at the moment because they are so many and have so much training. Later on, who knows?

Fast QWERTY typists and fast Colemak typists alike have techniques for fast typing, drilling common words and using some nonstandard fingering for instance. It turns out that when a fast QWERTY typist makes the switch to Colemak he or she will quickly build up speed with Colemak as well but it's hard to determine beforehand what the end result will be and how fast it will develop. Keep in mind that most really fast typists have trained QWERTY from childhood!

Last edited by DreymaR (20-May-2011 07:54:57)

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btqyq9o23f9nj9z8b.jpg

I have no serious practice except normal typing at work and home. Luckily my keyboard is still working, and growing.

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bubkt9gucm9k9eu8r.gif

My Amphetype graph recently.  It fluctuates around 65 wpm.

Last edited by Tony_VN (13-Jun-2011 12:28:43)
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bubogagbyvnw2o3h7.jpg

My Typeracer result. I think I am faster than the last week.

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Haha Tony - "Osho sex to superconsciousness"!  :D  Was it good for you?  ;)

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Hmm I have just been typing the first chapter, so I cannot say much. I hope after 500 years or so I will become a powerful God or deity :-)

Funnily, that book earns the most popularity because there's sex in the title, but the book's main purpose is to transform sex for something higher than that. Guess that people just want higher sexual performance.

For anyone who may be interested

Osho - From Sex to Superconsciousness

Last edited by Tony_VN (14-Jun-2011 12:27:15)
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It's been ages since I've been on this forum, would you believe I stumbled across this thread when I searched Google Images for my colemak keyboard image (easier than trying to find the URL manually)?

You're doing really well Tony, I've been typing with colemak for just over a year and I'm only at about 47-50wpm on hi-games.net/typing-test. Mind you, it's probably not much off my original QWERTY speed.

DreymaR said:

I'm afraid that Dellwood board has poor-quality membrane keys? In that case, you're better off getting a good mechanical board that allows you to move the key caps around.

If you check out my original thread, it's a buckling spring keyboard. I also got a Filco with brown cherry switches, and it's nowhere near as nice as the unicomp in terms of typing feel, though build quality is much better than the unicomp. I use it at work though, and it's a reasonable compromise between typing feel and key noise (it's a fairly open-plan office).

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unicomp.jpg

It's great to see you back in this forum, Dellwood. Your keyboards is still my dream.

I see that 50wpm is your limitation of touch typing just as 63wpm is mine. For Sean Wrona, that limitation is 190wpm, but he can touch type since 4 years old and have practised each day since then.

What a coincidence in keyboards! I also have bought a Filco Majestouch brown for work and put old Compaq MX 11800 brown at home. With these mechanical keyboards I type 3 to 5wpm faster, with less effort.

To give up the habit of looking at the keyboard while typing, I have also bought a Ninja keycap sets with different color than black color of the board.

Last edited by Tony_VN (21-Jun-2011 15:48:57)
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Thanks for the update/reminder, Dellwood! :)

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Tony_VN said:

http://www.dellwood.net/Misc/unicomp.jpg

It's great to see you back in this forum, Dellwood. Your keyboards is still my dream.

I see that 50wpm is your limitation of touch typing just as 63wpm is mine. For Sean Wrona, that limitation is 190wpm, but he can touch type since 4 years old and have practised each day since then.

What a coincidence in keyboards! I also have bought a Filco Majestouch brown for work and put old Compaq MX 11800 brown at home. With these mechanical keyboards I type 3 to 5wpm faster, with less effort.

To give up the habit of looking at the keyboard while typing, I have also bought a Ninja keycap sets with different color than black color of the board.

Wow, I must've been off my game the other day, because I just got 57wpm then 56wpm on hi-games.net/typing-test!

Actually, the other annoying thing about the Unicomp is that I have to change the key bindings in games to make them controllable. Also I've noticed when using portable keyboard layout with a QWERTY keyboard, that programs that run with Administrator permissions in Windows 7 don't get translated, which is a bit of a pain! So I guess both have their pros and cons.

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Day 230: 64 wpm (+1) with 98% accuracy.

Long time I haven't practised at all except normal typing at home and at work.

I am happy with the Colemak layout as some of my colleagues have recognized that my fingers has not moved as much as theirs. I explain the layout theory to them. They are quite impressed with my typing speed but find that it is not worth the effort to learn touch typing, let alone Colemak.

For occasional situation where I have to work at another computer, I bring usb with colemak.exe to type Colemak without installing the Colemak layout package.

Last edited by Tony_VN (06-Oct-2011 12:35:18)
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My speed on Typing Tutor hasn't improved for while, but my max speed at hi-games.net has increased.

http://hi-games.net/profile/4314
30 sec 83 wpm.
1 min 75wpm.
5 mins 67wpm.

Edit: Just got 2 mins 74wpm.
Edit again: 1min 78wpm.

Last edited by Tony_VN (28-Sep-2011 08:58:13)
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Day 304: 65wpm (+1) with 98% accuracy.

It's nice to see that my typing speed can increase, although at much slower pace.

Last edited by Tony_VN (06-Oct-2011 12:57:40)
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Day 355: 66wpm (+1) with 98% accuracy.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnnSkIr46IhuXtiND4LjzmUoT1rkIw63Jx1tpKzprv_O1RIXsS

Last edited by Tony_VN (26-Nov-2011 11:44:15)
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That's about where I've "landed"; that is, after reaching this speed and accuracy I moved into a phase where I didn't bother to improve anymore so I didn't.

Lately however, I've taken to using Amphetype again and I feel that I might just improve a bit again. In reality, I type at 70+ WPM but too unevenly even if a 2% error rate isn't very high. So when flow really happens I can push 70-80 WPM comfortably. I think that my ultimate goal is a consistent 80 WPM but I'm in no real hurry. Got other projects to research as well such as ergonomic mods and more importantly, the Extend layers! They're more important than raw typing speed to me.

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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True, when you don't expect much from yourself, you will naturally improve, at your own leisurely pace.

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Finally I got to 67wpm (according to Typing Tutor 7) after a long time.

Top score in hi-games.net:
73wpm for 5 minutes
74wpm for 2 minutes
78wpm for 1 minute
85wpm for 30 seconds

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Congrats Tony! Next one to come...

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Thanks Paftaka. My speed has increased to 68wpm according to Typing Tutor 7.

According to Typeracer the numbers are a bit higher:
c668oqqxw8vvfq839.gif

As you have seen, the speed increase is very small once you get to the top of your speed.

Last edited by Tony_VN (09-Aug-2012 12:31:15)
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Debian GNU/Linux Jessie NitroType TypeTest

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Hi Vietnamese fellow! I'm from Vietnam too.
I've just learned Colemak for 2 days and I've been enjoying it a lot. Typing English in Colemak is sure more efficient than QWERTY. I want to know your experience in typing Vietnamese. How do you usually type Vietnamese, with Telex, VNI or Windows-provided keyboard? Which way of typing diacritics and accent marks do you find most comfortable? Before, when I used QWERTY I typed diacritics and accent marks using VNI. Thank you!

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Hi Sonnelicht

I use Telex way to type Vietnamese exclusively, which is good since Telex uses only alphabets to type diacritics and accent marks, so my hands don't have to reach number row in comparison with VNI. It saves a lot of finger travel, since accent rsfxj keys are quite close, except the j key.

Good luck to your Colemak journey. Great to hear that you already feel the typing comfort that alternative layouts like Colemak can provide. You may want to create a diary here to record your progress and your thoughts about the switch.

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Thank you for your response, Tony. Now it's time to try out Telex. Gotta work hard!

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You're welcome. Hopefully you will learn Colemak successfully, and become another Vietnamese Colemak users.

Last edited by Tony_VN (16-Sep-2013 12:13:17)
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I try to increase my accuracy for a change with Amphetype

cjfjfg89j7a2cy8y2.jpg

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