
Ask HN: How did you keep improving your typing speed after 100 WPM? - sixhobbits
I type at 100+ WPM on a Laptop (Qwerty) keyboard (120+ on a nice cherry blue keyboard). I know many typists get faster than this. I practice on http:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.typeracer.com&#x2F; a bit, but it doesn&#x27;t seem to improve my speed much.<p>I have no need to type faster than 100 words per minute, but I&#x27;m interested in how one would keep  improving when all the learning resources are targeted at beginners.
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kanzure
I rank somewhat high on typeracer:
[http://www.seanwrona.com/typeracer/profile.php?username=kanz...](http://www.seanwrona.com/typeracer/profile.php?username=kanzure)

Maybe I can provide some advice. The most important thing is to type very
quickly. Heated real-time chatroom activity (read: flamewars) are also helpful
for honing this skill...

But chats might not be your thing. One other thing that might help is going to
conferences and typing transcripts. Here's a few that I have done:
[http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/) For
example, this recently included a Bitcoin event where my typing was originally
meant to be a community resource for after the event... but during the event
this "resource" became a supplement to and alternative to live translation
into Chinese (someone decided to throw it up on a projector while I was
typing- no pressure): [http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/2016-july-bitcoin-
develope...](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/2016-july-bitcoin-developers-
miners-meeting/cali2016/)

A long time ago I thought of myself as a keyboard snob, but the truth was that
I hadn't tried that many keyboards. After experimenting with some expensive
keyboards, I have found that for me the actual keyboard doesn't make too much
of a difference, unless it's an exceptionally bad keyboard. I would recommend
looking for keyboards that support n-key rollover, which would allow you to
experiment with plover if you ever wanted to go in that direction for typing.

I use the default qwerty keyboard layout. It might be more productive to
experiment with building alternative keyboards rather than changing keyboard
layouts. Chording might be an interesting direction to pursue. Skip to using
lots of MEMS accelerometer sensors and gyroscope sensors on a glove and get
real-time motion capture of tiny finger motions. Use a few accelerometers per
finger. You could spend a few hours making weird (easy) motions with your
fingers, and then those state transitions could then be mapped to different
symbols. You could also use a 3d model of the human hand, forearm and shoulder
to compute the exact range of feasible and repeatable motions based on muscle
anatomy, then sample from that range and assign symbols to different
transitions.

Typing quickly isn't everything. It doesn't help you figure out what to say.

~~~
sixhobbits
That's certainly a lot of words you've typed. Thanks for the detailed
insights. I need to Google things like "n-key rollover", so I'll definitely
spend some quality time with your reply.

------
davekt
[https://typing.io/lessons](https://typing.io/lessons) let you type through
code, which exercises the right pinky more than prose. The site also requires
backspacing to correct typos. This adds realistic overhead not normally
captured in wpm measurements.

------
w-m
After looking for something similar some time ago, and also not finding
anything suitable, I wrote a simple script that would let you repeat given
phrases from a text file.

I gave it two modes: 1) show a new phrase to type and time the wpm. 2) of all
already timed phrases, show the slowest one to be typed and timed again.

My observations were that you could in fact increase typing speed for certain
areas of input, weak fingers or weak letter combinations.

Just showing the slowest phrase is very simplistic, but it does a surprisingly
good job. You will only get to see a different phrase if you improved on the
current one significantly and learned a new 'skill'. It also automatically
does a form of spaced repetition as you normally only increase speed in small
steps and will see slow phrases again and again.

It didn't bother me much to type in lots of phrases I was already fast at to
single out the slow ones. But: after some playing around with it I saw that
for many inputs it's mostly a concentration problem, less a finger-mechanical
one.

How much C code can you type at 100 wpm before running out of things to type?

How much C code written by others can you read/parse at > 100 wpm before
making a concentration lapse?

I haven't used the script in a while and went on to try to single out the slow
patterns in every-day typing (mostly the error rate being to high) and then
try to figure out why my fingers don't know where to go reliably. I then make
an effort to train these patterns a little, maybe correcting an actual
mistakes or lazyness in placement.

~~~
abecedarius
What length of phrase did you find most effective for this kind of deliberate
practice? How'd you pick them?

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gcr
Court reporters are required to type at 240WPM with zero mistakes, or they
lose their court reporting license.

You can teach yourself to use a stenography machine. You can build your own
steno machine with some open-source software and a fancy gaming keyboard. See
this video by Mirabai Knight and the Plover project:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-
dB6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g)

I wanted to try this but I couldn't stick with it.

------
curun1r
Disclaimer: I type slower than you (~80 wpm) and I have no idea whether this
will help you, but it's helped me get to where I am without any formal
training in typing. And I never went through a hunt-and-peck phase...it always
felt natural to use all 10 of my fingers.

That said, have you thought about taking up the piano? I feel like the
dexterity that I develop playing the piano, particularly the ability to very
quickly play repeated and alternating notes, has helped me to type faster. It
should also help with rhythm, since piano keys need to be correct in both
location and time to sound correct. If you're only interested in the effect on
typing, you can avoid music with lots of chords and focus mostly on songs that
have a quick tempo.

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saintzozo
Typing ability is mostly neurological. After learning proper technique, you
aren't going to improve much more. Sleeping well if you don't already is
probably the only thing you can do.

------
cweagans
Epistory
([http://store.steampowered.com/app/398850](http://store.steampowered.com/app/398850))
might be of interest.

------
mjklin
Sounds like you're talking about stenography. Have a look here:
[http://www.openstenoproject.org](http://www.openstenoproject.org)

~~~
sixhobbits
No, I'm looking at pushing the limits a bit further on a standard keyboard
with no specialized software.

------
DanBC
Most advice is to start correctly with proper touch typing, and then focus on
accuracy and rhythm.

If you got to 100 wpm by that route all you can do is keep practising, maybe
with a metronome. (Although that's going to be a horrible noise at that
speed).

If you ever look at the keys that's going to slow you down, so use a cloth
over your hands to hide the keys.

The other problem is that typing tests require you to read. Try typing some
spoken word - try typing a podcast or radio show. You may find you type that
faster.

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nso95
The marginal benefit of exceeding 100wpm is quite small. Your time would be
better spent learning other things, or just relaxing and enjoying your life.

------
jbpetersen
I normally type around 110 WPM and have found I can hit 150+ sprints of a few
seconds if I have real-time feedback on how quickly I'm typing without relying
on how quickly it feels like I'm typing.

Unfortunately I don't know of any tools that go much further than that in
providing useful feedback.

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lousken
For me the best training is vim. I have 80+WPM, peak 105. If you have keyboard
that suits you, the only thing you can do is type more.

------
bitwize
Switch to Dvorak.

~~~
sixhobbits
_real_ men use Colemak, right? /sarc

I tried Dvorak for a couple of weeks and got to OK speeds, but in the end it
wasn't worth throwing out the countless hours of experience with qwerty, or
the slight discomfort of using other computers and having to switch mentally.

~~~
phoboslab
I've been using Colemak for the past 10 years now and couldn't be happier with
it. I have abandoned the German QWERTZ layout, mainly because writing code
with QWERTZ is a real pain (curly braces, brackets and many other special
chars can only be reached with the ALT modifier). Also, the layout for special
characters on QWERTZ is different for Mac and Windows and I'm using both.

Colemak is way easier to learn than Dvorak if you come from QWERTY. With
Colemak, all special chars and some common shortcuts (undo, cut, copy, paste)
are on the same key as on QWERTY.

I don't know if I'm faster with Colemak than I would be with QWERTY now for
normal text, but it certainly feels smoother and more natural, if that makes
sense.

Unrelated to Colemak: I wrote a typing game a few years ago. It's more
"playful" than Typeracer and targeted at beginners. I don't think it will
improve your typing speed past a certain level, but it should still be fun:

[http://zty.pe](http://zty.pe)

~~~
bitwize
That's because of keyboard-layout colonialism: most programming languages in
common use were developed in English-speaking countries, particularly the USA,
and make use of symbols that are not hard to type on the US keyboard layout.

------
Rainymood
I peak around ~160 wpm, just practice. Work on 0 mistake and then after that
speed.

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throwawayReply
What is this, humblebrag? Advert for typeracer?

You type at 100WPM. Unless you're transcribing can you really think at 100WPM?

I haven't measured it, but I think I type around 40 wpm (although adjusted
much slower, I have poor typing accuracy) and I certainly don't feel like my
typing slows me down, my typing more than keeps up with the speed of thought.

Maybe I just think really slowly.

But honestly, "Oh no I only type at <ludicrously fast speed>, what can I do to
improve?" sounds a bit silly.

~~~
throwawaymsft
The average talking speed is above 100 wpm. Why not learn to transcribe your
thoughts (internal speech) in real time?

~~~
douche
Really? That seems very high. I think I shoot for 10-15...

Ideally, I can measure my speech in wph.

~~~
forthefuture
I'm not sure I understand. 15 words per minute means you say one word every 4
seconds.

~~~
douche
On reconsideration, I think I'm still estimating too high on the average. I
might be a little laconic.

