Touch typing course

From finger placement to special characters, two keys at a time. Accuracy first: a lesson is passed from 90% accuracy, and each further star asks for a little more accuracy and speed.

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0 min today
Ideal: 15 to 30 min a day, in short sessions.

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Lessons adapt to the chosen keyboard layout and language. Colours show the finger for each key.

1

Position and posture

Before speed comes position: it is what lets you type without looking. A few minutes here save months of bad habits.

  1. 1.1 The home position
2

The home row

The middle row is the anchor: every finger comes back to it after each stroke. Two new keys per lesson; the guide stays visible for the whole module.

  1. 2.1 The index fingers
  2. 2.2 The middle fingers
  3. 2.3 The ring fingers
  4. 2.4 The little fingers
  5. 2.5 Index finger stretches
  6. 2.6 Review: the home row checkpoint
3

The top row

Each finger moves up diagonally, slightly to the left, then comes back to its home key. The guide now only appears after a hesitation of more than a second.

  1. 3.1 Middle fingers go up
  2. 3.2 Index fingers go up
  3. 3.3 Ring fingers go up
  4. 3.4 Little fingers go up
  5. 3.5 Top row stretches
  6. 3.6 Review: first real words checkpoint
4

The bottom row

The fingers move down diagonally to the right. The guide disappears: the fingers must find their keys on their own, which is how muscle memory is built.

  1. 4.1 Index fingers go down
  2. 4.2 Middle fingers go down
  3. 4.3 Ring fingers go down
  4. 4.4 Little fingers go down
  5. 4.5 Bottom row stretches
  6. 4.6 Review: the whole alphabet checkpoint
5

Capitals and punctuation

Capitals and punctuation turn lists of words into real text.

  1. 5.1 Capital letters
  2. 5.2 Punctuation
  3. 5.3 Full sentences checkpoint
6

Special characters, accents and digits

The module most methods skim over. On AZERTY, accents have their own keys, digits need Shift and programming symbols go through AltGr: each gets its own training. The guide appears when you hesitate.

  1. 6.1 é and è
  2. 6.2 à, ù and ç
  3. 6.3 The circumflex
  4. 6.4 The diaeresis
  5. 6.5 Digits 1 to 5
  6. 6.6 Digits 6 to 0
  7. 6.7 Numbers in context
  8. 6.8 The numeric keypad
  9. 6.9 Brackets, quotes and dashes
  10. 6.10 AltGr symbols
  11. 6.11 Other symbols
  12. 6.12 Exam: special characters checkpoint
7

Speed and fluency

The whole keyboard is now known: time for fluency. An expert no longer types letter by letter but word by word; these exercises automate the most frequent words and letter sequences.

  1. 7.1 The 100 most common words
  2. 7.2 Frequent letter pairs
  3. 7.3 Sentences in rhythm
  4. 7.4 Endurance checkpoint

Understanding the statistics

Every measurement is recomputed by the server from each recorded keystroke (which key, at what time): the same rules apply everywhere.

Speed

WPM (words per minute)
Net speed. By convention a “word” is 5 characters, space included, whatever the actual length of the words: speed stays comparable from one text to another. WPM = characters of correct words ÷ 5 ÷ minutes. Only words that are correct when Space is pressed count (with their space; a mistake corrected before does not penalise them here), plus the correct start of the last word in progress.
Raw
Speed ignoring mistakes: all keystrokes ÷ 5 ÷ minutes, right or wrong, spaces included (Backspace is not counted). The gap between raw and WPM measures what mistakes cost.
Result chart
Second by second: cumulative WPM since the start (thick line), instantaneous raw speed of each second (thin line), and crosses for the seconds with mistakes.

Accuracy and consistency

Accuracy
correct keystrokes ÷ all keystrokes. A corrected mistake is still a mistake: accuracy measures what the fingers typed, not the final text.
Consistency
How steady the rhythm is, from 0 to 100%. It is computed from how much the raw speed varies from one second to the next (coefficient of variation), with the same formula as Monkeytype so that values are comparable. 100% = a perfectly steady rhythm.
Words ✓ / ✗
Words confirmed with Space while correct / wrong.
Keystrokes ✓ / ✗
Number of correct / wrong keystrokes, spaces included.
Confusions
“expected → typed”: the key that should have been pressed and the one pressed instead. A frequent confusion between two neighbouring keys often points to a misplaced finger.

Detailed analysis

Bigrams, trigrams
Sequences of 2 or 3 letters inside a word (“th”, “ing”). They are the real movements of typing: people rarely stumble on a single letter, often on a sequence.
Delay (ms), “slowest”
Time between two keystrokes. Only “clean” sequences count (a correct keystroke right after a correct keystroke, with no correction in between) and pauses longer than 2 seconds are ignored, to measure speed rather than hesitations or corrections.
Smoothed error rate
Rankings do not sort on the raw rate, otherwise a bigram missed 1 time out of 2 would rank above one missed 30 times out of 200. Each rate is pulled towards the overall average, as if 20 “average” attempts were added: it takes a lot of data for a unit to move away from the average. A bigram is only ranked from 10 attempts, a trigram from 8, a word from 2.
Most missed / slowest words
A word is “missed” if it had at least one mistake, even corrected. Its speed is measured from the previous space to its own space, then scaled to its length, so that a long word is not always the slowest.
Keyboard (heatmap)
Each key is coloured by its error rate or its average delay, relative to the other keys. A key is only coloured from 5 keystrokes.
Per finger, per hand
Key statistics grouped by the finger that should press them in touch typing (colours of the “fingers” mode), even if another finger is used in practice.

Progress

WPM (last 10), average WPM, record
Average of the last 10 tests, average over the chosen period, best test. Records are kept separately per test duration and mode: a numbers test is not compared with a words test.
WPM / 10 tests (trend)
The pace of progress: the slope of a line fitted on the last 50 tests, expressed in WPM gained (or lost) every 10 tests. Shown from 10 tests.
Progress chart
One dot per test; the line is the moving average over 10 tests, which smooths out good and bad days.
Minutes of typing
Total duration of the tests over the period.
Weak spots
This mode builds the text from the last 90 days: the 6 most missed bigrams, the 3 slowest and the most missed words, mixed with common words so it still reads like real text.

Course

Stars
The number of stars is the lower of two tiers: accuracy (★ from 90%, ★★ from 94%, ★★★ from 97%) and speed (★★ from the lesson's minimum speed, ★★★ from its target speed). One star passes the lesson and unlocks the next one: speed never blocks.
Stop on error
In lessons, a wrong key counts as a mistake but the cursor waits for the right key: no wrong movement is repeated and there is nothing to delete.
Skipped
A lesson moved past without being passed.
Lesson statistics
Keystrokes from lessons do not count in the statistics: the early exercises (“fff jjj”) would distort the analysis of real text.

Leaderboard

What is ranked
Each player's best test in each category (language, duration, mode), from 85% accuracy. The “weak spots” mode is not ranked: its text depends on each player's weaknesses.
Verified results
Every test is analysed when it is sent. It stays in the player's statistics but only enters the leaderboard after a review if it shows a sign of automation: keystrokes simulated by a script or pasted text (ignored by the page), a rhythm too regular for a human, repeated identical delays, an impossible sustained speed, 100% accuracy above 160 WPM, or a jump of more than 50% over the player's average.
Position, top %
The rank among the players ranked in the category; “top 10%” means being among the fastest 10%.