Typing tips

[Horse_Badorties]

Hi all,

I'm not really a regular 10fastfingers user but I found your forum very helpful and decided to ask here...

I learned touch typing a couple of months ago after having used my home-grown hunt-and-peck method for all my life.
My problem has always been a horrendous error rate and this I have carried over to my touch typing skills
This is really driving me nuts. My goal would be to reach an error ratio of about 1% or below. I do have 3-5% which is way too high and I have no idea how to get it down.

I do regular training on online.tipp10.com - mostly with german texts. And I have yet to finish a single exercise without any errors - never happens!

- QWERTZ keyboard (I'm german)
- 48 years of age
- Current typing speed for random german newspaper texts of 30-40 WPM. Which is fine by me, I don't really have to become a high speed typist.
- Error ratio a whooping 3-5% - my backspace/delete key is busy, no doubt about it
- Slowing down does not(!) seem to help!
- Of cause there are keys I struggle a bit more with but the majority of errors are of the "stupid" or "random" category.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Torsten

[Linsk]

Hi,

Slowing down doesn't help at all?
Either you don't slow down enough, or you still have to work on touch typing. Or both.
You've typed the same way for years. A couple of months might not be enough.

[Horse_Badorties]

Thanks for your answer.

No, slowing down doesn’t seem to help. It depends a bit on the text, but slowing down below my current “natural” typing speed does not improve accuracy. Slowing down too much makes me think too much about the actual typing process and that does not help at all.

Yes, maybe I have to be patient and just keep on practicing, I don’t know.
What concerns me a bit is the fact that I had this high error ratio with my old hunt and peck system as well. Maybe it’s a brain defect of mine.

[Linsk]

You're welcome.

Slowing down too much makes me think too much about the actual typing process and that does not help at all.

This tends to confirm that you have not worked enough on your touch typing. If you slow down a lot, or even if you stop typing and, despite this, you hesitate to find the key to type, it means your touch typing is deficient.

It's not obvious at first sight, but touch typing and accuracy work are two different things. The first step is to learn once and for all the mapping of your keyboard. This is an important step on which you can't go fast.

Also, the typing process needs to be unraveled. It's crucial and helps afterwards. You have to go through it at the beginning, at least once per key and per word. When this work of deconstruction has been done several times, you end up no longer need to think much about it and typing is significantly improved.

Last, once your fingers perfectly know how to reach any key on the keyboard and they move without you needing to look or think, only then the accuracy work can begin. And for that the right positioning of the fingers is decisive.

Yes, be patient, rigorous and diligent. Your brain is fine. It just needs you take your time to teach it the right way. Thinking while learning is useful. But thinking too much will slows you down, because typing is mainly a matter of muscle memory and automatism refining.

[Horse_Badorties]

This tends to confirm that you have not worked enough on your touch typing. If you slow down a lot, or even if you stop typing and, despite this, you hesitate to find the key to type, it means your touch typing is deficient.

Well, I don't really hesitate to find keys, but it still happens that I mistake one key for another, yes.
There is the odd completely random error, but most errors seem to be one of:

• Mistaking one key for another, like 'l' for 'k' (or the other way 'round), 'g' for 'h' and so on

• Uppercase letters, the German language uses them a lot - for each noun no matter the position within the sentence.
  I don't really have trouble "finding" the Shift key, but pressing it at the exact same time together with the letter key sometimes doesn't work out.

• Hitting the space bar "automatically", missing a comma or a period.

• Losing the position on the keyboard - I am pretty strict to return my fingers back to the home row, but it still happens that I have to find/feel the 'f' and 'j' keys before continuing, else I hit wrong keys because my hand position is off-by-one.
  This happens more with my right hand because I lift my hand from the home row to hit the Delete key...

• My error ration with some keys is higher, which is to be expected I guess - needs practice.

• Errors tend to come in clusters - when I hit a wrong key, chances are that I commit one or more errors right after it, due to frustration or impatiance, I guess.

The first step is to learn once and for all the mapping of your keyboard. This is an important step on which you can't go fast.

Also, the typing process needs to be unraveled. It's crucial and helps afterwards. You have to go through it at the beginning, at least once per key and per word. When this work of deconstruction has been done several times, you end up no longer need to think much about it and typing is significantly improved.

What would you recommend to practice? Just typing as much normal texts as possible? I don't really think going for those speed word lists like those on 10fastfingers helps me a lot. Maybe with finger dexterity/speed, but as I said, my goal ist not to reach very high WPM levels.

I found one thing to be interessting - when I type with my eyes closed it feels kinda weird and I feel a bit more unsafe because I don't see which keys I have just typed. While typing blindfolded I have the sensation that I commit more errors but when I check the results it is not really the case.
I guess that's another hint that my touch typing is not yet burned into my finger memory 100%, right? Once it is, typing blindfolded should feel just like looking at the screen while typing I guess.

[Linsk]

Yes, typing with your eyes closed while trying to reach 100% accuracy is a great exercise and quickly shows if you really know your keyboard or not. In the case where there is still work at this level, typing with the virtual keyboard visible on the screen can help to find and memorize the failing keys without the need to look at your hands and keyboard.

It doesn't matter what you type, whether it's all the keyboard characters separately, the alphabet, random word series or texts, all is good as long as it's varied in difficulty and length.

Target your weaknesses and your recurring mistakes and try to correct them and work them by being aware of them and by anticipating them when you type, making stops for that if needed.

[Max Antle]

Learning to type fast isn't just something you get in the matter of a few seconds but I think I may have a tip for anyone on this thread who wants to learn how to type faster. Wether they'll work or not for you is unknown but this tip did help me, so I suppose they are kinda worth sharing lol.

Typing Out A Sentence First First off, this tip is pretty basic. A simple 'hack' you can do to improve your typing is typing a random sentence off the top of your head and continue to type it out multiple times. As you do it gradually try and pick up your speed, if you make any mistakes don't worry, it's normal. Everyone does it, even the best typist out there. Then, once you believe you've mastered the feeling of typing that change it up and just keep doing this trick with different sentences for about 30 every few days/weeks. Hopefully, it's help you improve your speed. Thanks to anyone who decided to take their time to read this. baiiii!

[toddhicks209]

This tends to confirm that you have not worked enough on your touch typing. If you slow down a lot, or even if you stop typing and, despite this, you hesitate to find the key to type, it means your touch typing is deficient.

Well, I don't really hesitate to find keys, but it still happens that I mistake one key for another, yes.
There is the odd completely random error, but most errors seem to be one of:

• Mistaking one key for another, like 'l' for 'k' (or the other way 'round), 'g' for 'h' and so on

• Uppercase letters, the German language uses them a lot - for each noun no matter the position within the sentence.
  I don't really have trouble "finding" the Shift key, but pressing it at the exact same time together with the letter key sometimes doesn't work out.

• Hitting the space bar "automatically", missing a comma or a period.

• Losing the position on the keyboard - I am pretty strict to return my fingers back to the home row, but it still happens that I have to find/feel the 'f' and 'j' keys before continuing, else I hit wrong keys because my hand position is off-by-one.
  This happens more with my right hand because I lift my hand from the home row to hit the Delete key...

• My error ration with some keys is higher, which is to be expected I guess - needs practice.

• Errors tend to come in clusters - when I hit a wrong key, chances are that I commit one or more errors right after it, due to frustration or impatiance, I guess.

The first step is to learn once and for all the mapping of your keyboard. This is an important step on which you can't go fast.

Also, the typing process needs to be unraveled. It's crucial and helps afterwards. You have to go through it at the beginning, at least once per key and per word. When this work of deconstruction has been done several times, you end up no longer need to think much about it and typing is significantly improved.

What would you recommend to practice? Just typing as much normal texts as possible? I don't really think going for those speed word lists like those on 10fastfingers helps me a lot. Maybe with finger dexterity/speed, but as I said, my goal ist not to reach very high WPM levels.

I found one thing to be interessting - when I type with my eyes closed it feels kinda weird and I feel a bit more unsafe because I don't see which keys I have just typed. While typing blindfolded I have the sensation that I commit more errors but when I check the results it is not really the case.
I guess that's another hint that my touch typing is not yet burned into my finger memory 100%, right? Once it is, typing blindfolded should feel just like looking at the screen while typing I guess.

You said you lift your right hand off the home row. Instead of lifting a hand, you should simply lift your fingers while keeping your wrists on your computer.

[Bitbatgaming]

I want to reach 100 wpm, but i have my own typing style. You see, i type without my pinkys, and use all other fingers except the left thumb. If i type the proper way , i lose accuracy, and it hurts because i am double jointed on the left hand.
I see that i have been getting some low accuracy lately, and i still want to get high scores. I am the fastest typer in my entire school( grade 8.) and pretty much nobody can give me advice.

[Phaedrean]

Hello there.

I've been using 10FastFingers for a while now and thought I would share my tips that helped me getting better. "Better" in the meaning of a little bit faster and a lot more confidence in typing. I haven't read all of the 15 pages of this thread, so maybe they are duplicate. Still though, here are my 50 cents:

Typing slower
I know, it was mentioned before, but here again: Try to start with a "slower" speed than usual (not "slow" per se) and stay relaxed, with a mindset similar to "I am just trying how it goes (and don't have to prove myself)". You will automatically pick up speed. When you get this unsettling feeling, that you are about to make a typing mistake soon, slow down again a bit.

Slightly distract yourself
Yes, that sounds strange, but that's kind of how my brain works. If I focus too much on the text, I do a hell lof typing mistakes (usually small ones, like no capital letter or a missing "s" at the end of the word). What works for me there is either "singing" (yes, sing it!) the words that are about to come, or listening to some music.

Top 1000 Typing Softcore
This one kind of took my fear of complex words (development, association, particularily, ...) and gave me more confidence in writing them.

Top 1000 Typing Hardcore
The real fun starts here. I think this one helped me the most of all in regard to typing confidence, because I am kind of forced to stay calm to avoid mistakes. I see more and more often that I have a higher WPS in the hardcore mode than I first had at the softcore mode.
The hardcore mode really sounded brutal to me at the beginning. But with the right mindset (see above) it is a lot of fun.

I hope this helps. Have a nice day!