Three years ago, around this time in March I was sitting in my hostel room thinking to myself what great pleasure it would be to type without seeing the keyboard at all. It almost gives you a geek feeling to do something like that. Since that point on I have been practicing quite a while. I have reached a point where my average typing speed is 70 wpm (words per minute). From my own learning experience I would like to share it with the rest of the world on how to start typing and get good at it. It took me around 6 months to get a hang of things but don't you worry about the duration because if it wasn't for fun I wouldn't have noticed the time passing by.
For my readers I would like to make it clear that this post is for people learning to type on "qwerty" keyboard. This is the most popular keyboard used by 80% of the world's population - other being "dvorak" and "colmak" and there might be others but I don't know about them.
What you guys need is a keyboard and an internet connection. Once you get a little better at typing, you won't need the internet. You can do it on any notepad. The last and the most important thing you need is honesty. I'll tell you about that later.
So you ready to learn?
The posture
The only thing I didn't gave much importance. But as I got along, it really did matter what is your posture when you are typing. Trust me, posture affects your speed. You can slouch later , but when you are in a learning stage , you should maintain some discipline. Your fingers are not the only thing active when typing, its actually your whole arm. The correct way is to position yourself in a comfortable chair, and your hands should be in a right angle with the keyboard, like an "L" shape. And try to adjust the key "B" in the center of your chest. One more thing which I didn't follow was to place your eye level to the screen, but I think you can adjust the screen slightly lower than that.
Which finger goes where?
When I started to learn typing, I had to know which fingers go where. So like everybody else I googled and found it. This was very simple. The picture says it all.
Now for extremely beginners, if you would have noticed there is a small elevation on keys "F" and "J" and if you have numpad, then on the key "5" as well. These keys are used as reference for professional typist to navigate their fingers throughout the keyboard. The first thing you want to know about a keyboard is that it is made up of segments. The keys zxc... is called the bottom row. The keys abc... onwards is called the middle row or the home row. The top row is the numbers 123... and so on.
The home row is the row we would place our fingers initially. This is a must for every typist in the world. Look at the diagram above carefully to place your fingers accordingly.
The left index finger on the F key, the right index finger on the J key.
The left middle finger on the D key, the right middle finger on the K key.
The left ring finger on the S key, the right ring finger on the L key.
The left little finger on the A key, the right little finger on the ; key.
See the diagram above for which finger to use for the numbers.
Additional Notes
The only thing remaining is your thumb. The thumb is used for spacebar only. Now depending on your own personality , it depends which thumb you are comfortable with. There are people who use both the thumbs for spacebar. But I use my left thumb only. Which means I use 9 fingers, instead of 10 if you got that impression ;)
Now, I recommend you to go on to this site where I spent my first week in practice.
Keep in mind from here point on "You shall never see the keyboard again". It is important that you make mistakes early in this phase, as your mind will be in adjustment mode to know where you are going wrong and it will register and alert you on that particular key in future.
Never concentrate on your speed, concentrate on your accuracy. Speed will come naturally. You will automatically type the words that often repeat itself such as "the" , "an" , "that" , words ending with "ing", "ser" , "ious"etc.
If you want to type a capital letter, it is very simple. Hold the shift key with your other finger. What I mean is suppose if you want to type capital "J", then hold the left shift key with your left little finger. In contrast to this if you want to type capital "E", hold the right shift key with your right little finger. That's it.
You have to understand you are not training your fingers , but actually its your brain!!
Your fingers does not change shape or become something else, they remain the same by appearance. It is your brain that has been trained. Practice is the key.
Just spend one week on the site and then come back here.
How to make learning fun
Once you are done with the above things. It is time for you to have fun while learning at the same time. Thanks to the internet we have those things at our disposal.
For anyone who is beginning to learn how to type , log in to this site - typeracer. Register for free and race with other people or your friends. It will keep a track of your progress over time. This is a wonderful site, way better than those typing tutor softwares and you will thank me for it.
Now if your are in an area without an internet connection, just open notepad and start typing anything that comes to your mind.
Well that is it folks, hope you become a better typist. Share your views and your success story with me once you have mastered the art of typing.
For my readers I would like to make it clear that this post is for people learning to type on "qwerty" keyboard. This is the most popular keyboard used by 80% of the world's population - other being "dvorak" and "colmak" and there might be others but I don't know about them.
What you guys need is a keyboard and an internet connection. Once you get a little better at typing, you won't need the internet. You can do it on any notepad. The last and the most important thing you need is honesty. I'll tell you about that later.
So you ready to learn?
The posture
The only thing I didn't gave much importance. But as I got along, it really did matter what is your posture when you are typing. Trust me, posture affects your speed. You can slouch later , but when you are in a learning stage , you should maintain some discipline. Your fingers are not the only thing active when typing, its actually your whole arm. The correct way is to position yourself in a comfortable chair, and your hands should be in a right angle with the keyboard, like an "L" shape. And try to adjust the key "B" in the center of your chest. One more thing which I didn't follow was to place your eye level to the screen, but I think you can adjust the screen slightly lower than that.
Which finger goes where?
When I started to learn typing, I had to know which fingers go where. So like everybody else I googled and found it. This was very simple. The picture says it all.
 |
| For learning purposes, I recommend to put this as your desktop wallpaper. |
Now for extremely beginners, if you would have noticed there is a small elevation on keys "F" and "J" and if you have numpad, then on the key "5" as well. These keys are used as reference for professional typist to navigate their fingers throughout the keyboard. The first thing you want to know about a keyboard is that it is made up of segments. The keys zxc... is called the bottom row. The keys abc... onwards is called the middle row or the home row. The top row is the numbers 123... and so on.
The home row is the row we would place our fingers initially. This is a must for every typist in the world. Look at the diagram above carefully to place your fingers accordingly.
The left index finger on the F key, the right index finger on the J key.
The left middle finger on the D key, the right middle finger on the K key.
The left ring finger on the S key, the right ring finger on the L key.
The left little finger on the A key, the right little finger on the ; key.
See the diagram above for which finger to use for the numbers.
Additional Notes
The only thing remaining is your thumb. The thumb is used for spacebar only. Now depending on your own personality , it depends which thumb you are comfortable with. There are people who use both the thumbs for spacebar. But I use my left thumb only. Which means I use 9 fingers, instead of 10 if you got that impression ;)
Now, I recommend you to go on to this site where I spent my first week in practice.
Keep in mind from here point on "You shall never see the keyboard again". It is important that you make mistakes early in this phase, as your mind will be in adjustment mode to know where you are going wrong and it will register and alert you on that particular key in future.
Never concentrate on your speed, concentrate on your accuracy. Speed will come naturally. You will automatically type the words that often repeat itself such as "the" , "an" , "that" , words ending with "ing", "ser" , "ious"etc.
If you want to type a capital letter, it is very simple. Hold the shift key with your other finger. What I mean is suppose if you want to type capital "J", then hold the left shift key with your left little finger. In contrast to this if you want to type capital "E", hold the right shift key with your right little finger. That's it.
You have to understand you are not training your fingers , but actually its your brain!!
Your fingers does not change shape or become something else, they remain the same by appearance. It is your brain that has been trained. Practice is the key.
Just spend one week on the site and then come back here.
How to make learning fun
Once you are done with the above things. It is time for you to have fun while learning at the same time. Thanks to the internet we have those things at our disposal.
For anyone who is beginning to learn how to type , log in to this site - typeracer. Register for free and race with other people or your friends. It will keep a track of your progress over time. This is a wonderful site, way better than those typing tutor softwares and you will thank me for it.
Now if your are in an area without an internet connection, just open notepad and start typing anything that comes to your mind.
Well that is it folks, hope you become a better typist. Share your views and your success story with me once you have mastered the art of typing.
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