A user on the Typeracer forum posted these questions and, finding myself in the targeted category, I answered them. I post them here in case they answer someone's question or provoke further curiosity.
Also posting other users' responses below, with permission.
>Question
Answer
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:49:06 -0600, fring <address removed> wrote:
Subject: Questions for +100wpm people
>I wonder if everyone can type at more than 100wpm only with practice.
How long do you had been typing to up your speed from 50 to 100 wpm?
I began touch-typing a few years ago -- 2006, if I had to guess. I didn't document my progress. I just switched to ANSI Dvorak layout, struggled along in that, removed the printout of the layout from my desk when I could remember where everything was, and moved on from there.
Improvement does require practice, but that doesn't mean you have to consciously practise so much as you have to simply do what you're trying to be good at. I didn't use typing trainers or any such thing. They're boring anyway. I just typed online messages as I had been doing, and that was exposure enough.
>What do you think while typing at more than 100wpm? Do you think about what you are reading word by word or simply move your fingers and let your mind go away?
I find I can't type well if I don't focus on the text almost exclusively. If I'm typing original text, like I am now, I can listen actively to music, or look at something else and type; but when I have to read text and then type it back, I can't pay attention to much else.
I've tried addressing the text one word at a time, but then I get ahead of my own mental buffer. I find I do best when I scan back and forth between my current point in the text and about one line ahead, so that I know what to expect and don't stumble over, say, an unexpected capital or a comma that I thought was a period in my periphery.
>Do you press spacebar with left and right thumbs alternatively?
Right only. I've read that this is 'standard', but it's just what I ended up doing. It may be because, due to the skewing of the keyboard, the left thumb is lifted a bit farther off the spacebar in the left hand's efforts to reach its keys, so that the right thumb is best for striking the spacebar.
>Where do you type faster on a laptop keyboard or a normal keyboard?
A laptop keyboard is probably the worst common keyboard I could type on, followed closely by, as you say, a 'normal' keyboard. I dislike membrane keyboards altogether and never do nearly so well unless I'm using my IBM Model M or Das Keyboard.
>How many hours (playing typeracer) are needed in order to type average 10 wpm faster?
I do have averages at every 100 races documented at http://jack.is/typist/ but I vary too much and the sample is still too small for reliability (plus the global average was skewed when I spent a while racing with a keyboard I couldn't get used to).
David Pritts likes to make progress graphs of things, so maybe he could figure something out for you.
>Sorry if this looks like examination, but I always wanted to know all above and never meet anyone able to answer me.
No problem. I've always wondered about many abstract aspects of typing myself, and could never find good answers, so I hope this helps. ;)
>I wonder if everyone can type at more than 100wpm only with practice. How long do you had been typing to up your speed from 50 to 100 wpm?
I'm old school I guess. I "learned" to type in the 90s, in college, using Mavis Beacon. Got up to maybe 50 or 60WPM after a few months. Then found IRC, which within a few months averaged probably 90WPM. Now I'm averaging a little over 120WPM with QWERTY.
>What do you think while typing at more than 100wpm? Do you think about what you are reading word by word or simply move your fingers and let your mind go away?
I'm reading a few words ahead of what my fingers are typing. I make a conscious effort to notice any special characters or numbers/dates, as thore are more prone to mistakes on my fingers. When I think I'm typing slowly with a good read ahead, I end up averaging over 120WPM, sometimes in the 130s. Also I find myself not reading "words", but reading sentences. A lot of times my typos will be from my convoluted mind compiling my own "correct" syntax when the author actually wrote it differently. For example, I'd have a heck of a time typing anything from Shakespeare since I don't talk the same way he wrote.
>Do you press spacebar with left and right thumbs alternatively?
Yes. I think in doing so, I also sometimes hit the space bar in the middle of words. So m y typ ing end s up lo oking lik e th is. Perhaps that's just from a spacebar getting loose, or my thumbs getting lazy and resting on the space bar.
>Where do you type faster on a laptop keyboard or a normal keyboard?
I can't type fast on a laptop(at least on the laptops I have). I prefer keys that have more movement.
>How many hours (playing typeracer) are needed in order to type average 10 wpm faster?
After you get to that "comfortable" point where you aren't thinking about typing as much as you are thinking of your thoughts, I think the rate of improvement deminishes. So if it takes you 2 months to get from 100WPM to 110WPM, maybe it'll take 3 months to get from 110WPM to 120WPM. Extrapolate that a few years, we'll all be typing 370WPM in no time at all :)
>Sorry if this looks like examination, but I always wanted to know all above and never meet anyone able to answer me.
Hope that helps. Cya at the races! ..S
>I wonder if everyone can type at more than 100wpm only with practice. How long do you had been typing to up your speed from 50 to 100 wpm?
I have been typing for years -- I got my first computer when I was 5 which was a Commodore 64. There was a lot of typing involved since loading programs was typing out a command. With that being said, I have no idea how long it took me to go from 50wpm to 100wpm. I never measured my typing speed until about a year ago, which at that time I had about 20 years of typing experience.
>What do you think while typing at more than 100wpm? Do you think about what you are reading word by word or simply move your fingers and let your mind go away?
What works best for me with typing tests is to read ahead and let my brain feed the information I'm reading to my fingers and let it flow. The best tip I can give you is don't try to type fast. If you try to type fast, you're going to type letters reversely, capitalize letters that shouldn't be capital, type letters in lower case that should be capital, and just flat out press the wrong keys.
>Do you press spacebar with left and right thumbs alternatively?
I always use my left thumb for spacebar. I don't think I've ever used my right thumb for the spacebar.
>Where do you type faster on a laptop keyboard or a normal keyboard?
Normal keyboard. Laptop keyboards are too small for my fat fingers.
>How many hours (playing typeracer) are needed in order to type average 10 wpm faster?
Don't worry about trying to learn from TypeRacer. If you are trying to type faster, TypeRacer is just going to frustrate you. Instead, just start up a blogging profile (Live Journal and Blog Spot are good starting points) and write blogs. I started out from chatting with people as I'm playing video games such as Quake. I also do a lot of communication on instant messaging services such as AOL IM, Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger (now known as Windows Live Messenger or WLM), and ICQ. Alternatively, join a social chat room on IRC and just start conversing with people. This will brush up on your typing skills more than a typing tester, such as TypeRacer. When taking a typing test, you feel the "need" to rush and type as quickly as possible, where when normally typing, you are more inclined to type at a rate that is comfortable for your skills. Once you start to get the hang of it, then go to TypeRacer and measure your speed. Then head back into a chat room and get more familiar with typing! When you can type without looking at the keyboard, then you can start to worry about speed -- but always keep accuracy in mind. Believe it or not but people who take time to be accurate typically type faster than those who rush.
>I wonder if everyone can type at more than 100wpm only with practice. How long do you had been typing to up your speed from 50 to 100 wpm?
I got a computer when I was 9 or 10, but I didn't know how to touch- type. When I was 12, our computer science teacher made us spend the first 10-15 minutes of every class doing "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing". This was my first introduction to touch-typing, and that school year I ended at 120wpm. I also played the piano as a kid, which I think helped. I don't recall how long 50-100wpm took, or what speed I started at.
>What do you think while typing at more than 100wpm? Do you think about what you are reading word by word or simply move your fingers and let your mind go away?
I don't think much about how to type what I'm typing. Once I read the text, muscle memory controls my fingers.
Also, the muscles seem to have trained themselves on letter combinations as opposed to single letters. For example, I am much faster (maybe 75% faster?) at typing English vs., say, French (without the accents), and I attribute this to being more familiar with English letter combinations.
>Do you press spacebar with left and right thumbs alternatively?
I only use my right thumb for spacebar. My left thumb is never used for any typing. (I'm right-handed.)
>Where do you type faster on a laptop keyboard or a normal keyboard?
I'm roughly 20% faster on a normal keyboard.
>How many hours (playing typeracer) are needed in order to type average 10 wpm faster?
No clue, though practice definitely does make you faster. Seven years ago, I got 716cpm (5cpm = 1wpm) on TyperA (Minilek on http://typera.tk/oldhiscore.cws), and I remember that taking many many trials. Nowadays, getting 800+cpm on the same site takes just a few trials.
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1 comments so far (post your own)
This is the first time I read this. I was surprised to find myself mentioned -_-
This could be useful information to have... there has to be some ideal method for focusing that allows for optimal typing performance. When I'm "in the zone", I feel I type on average 10 WPM faster than normal, which I consider to be quite fast. If only I knew how to make this happen...
Posted by Valikor on 27Jul10 @ 1022 EDT | #225