10fastfingers.com

Hello,

"How can I type faster?" This is a frequently asked question and therefore I propose that we gather here anything that can help to improve in typing. So if you have a tip, a link to a website, software or video, feel free to share! Thank you.

I think Sean Wrona suggested this once (not exactly his words, but something like this):

Don't correct yourself if you make a mistake, just keep typing. You will be faster overall (because you don't stop to correct the word) and with time you will even reduce the amount of words you typed wrong before.

Before I read that I always corrected my words. Since then I tried to ignore mistakes (its still hard to not press the backspace button if a word is "red"). I feel this improved my typing speed a little bit and if I would practice more regularly, probably a lot more.

Great topic btw. I would really like to know how people achieve WPM of 150 or more (and than try to achieve this myself), its so insane I would like to know if it is just practice (chatting with friends in ICQ, writing articles maybe?) or if this has to do a lot with the technique. I feel that the greatest speed improved I had was when I started using ICQ around 15 years ago, but also 10FastFingers helped me improve a lot (at least at first).

Please share your tips, I think we would all benefit a lot!!

Maybe we can incorporate these tips into the practice mode once its done, I think that would be great.

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Practice really is everything. I was talking with somebody the other day about keyboards, and about which ones were best. I spend alot of my time on a laptop, using the integrated keyboard, which is obviously less desirable then a more spacious keyboard, but as I was saying then, I highly doubt that I'm losing much speed on the laptop keyboard, beause I've gotten used to it.

A couple of years ago I was in the mid 70s, and now I'm in the low 100s, but I do alot of writing for various projects. Practice and refining technique go along way, if you're looking to take more serious steps to improve your speed, I've heard good things about trying different keyboard layouts. They estimate that only about 32% of typing is done in the home row on a qwerty keyboard, there is a format called Dvorak where the more popular characters are on the home row and they estimate that in that layout, 70% of typing is done in the home row, which I would greatly increase typing speed I'm sure. There are programs for computers to help people type at incredibly fast speeds, such as programs that somewhat emulate stenography where 300 words per minute is not out of the ordinary, but new layouts or special programs are a big step to take, personally I don't even know how I could ever begin to learn a new keyboard layout.

Well I reach 150 WPM sometimes (it's mostly 140-148 though haha) but I think it's something which starts at a young age already. Friend of me now reached 195 WPM on 10FF and he started typing when he was 9 years old (or so). I'm also a typer which makes lots of mistakes. If I would go for 0 backspaces I'd end up with 25 wrong words during the evenings. I think it also depends on the length of the word whether you backspace or not -> sometiem *backspace backspace* and make it sometimes, worth 2 wpm after all. But yes don't bother backspacing words with 5 letters or less if you go for speed.

So the older you are, the harder it will be to improve the typing speed I believe. But with enough exercise it will work out.
And type how you feel comfortable, there aren't many "top typists" who are typing like you "should" type according to the courses.

Find a time when you are best at typing, for me that's mornings when I'm around 1-2 hours awake (I don't get to type that often then cause I have school) For you it may be the evening or after sporting or after lunch/dinner.

Relax while typing. Don't get angry at yourself if it won't work out and you keep failing with words in the first row, if it happens just relax, take a deep breath and try again. Cause if you are angry/annoyed and then you once completed the first row how you wanted it to complete, you may mess up at the second row again. Just relaxt, that's when you type at your best.

And as far as the not correcting yourself goes, it seems to me as if in a word, whether you get one letter wrong or all of them, the results show that you got all of them wrong. For example if the word is America, and you spell it america (forgetting proper capitalization), it would show you as having missed 7 characters instead of just 1. (I may be wrong, but this is the way it seems to me.)

So with that in mind, you wouldn't want to just continue spelling the word out and get it wrong, you might as well hit the spacebar and forfeit the word completely.

memoryproblems wrote:And as far as the not correcting yourself goes, it seems to me as if in a word, whether you get one letter wrong or all of them, the results show that you got all of them wrong. For example if the word is America, and you spell it america (forgetting proper capitalization), it would show you as having missed 7 characters instead of just 1. (I may be wrong, but this is the way it seems to me.)

So with that in mind, you wouldn't want to just continue spelling the word out and get it wrong, you might as well hit the spacebar and forfeit the word completely.

Yes that differs per typing site. At some sites it will count the a wrong, and "merica" correct but in 10FF it's the rule that you need all of the letters in a word correct to gain WPM. So it's all, or nothing

Not judging if this is fair or unfair.

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Can I give an useless piece of advise ?
Don't look at your keyboard

Anyway, I've played the piano for 11 years it might help me to reach 150-160 wpm.
And yes, type, just type !