Good day to everyone except to the neo-liberals always btching about .ml being a communist instance, we don’t care about your opinions
Moving on, I got my first computer about two years ago and typing has been a pain, last year I read a post online about touch typing and I’ve been trying to do that ever since but switching from my “hunt and peck” method is quite difficult. Changing hand forms and trying to return my hands to the home format has always made me given up on touch typing.
I now have a lot of typing and note-taking to do and I’m trying to learn this, so I’m looking for tips and advices on how to make this easier
thanks in advance, pals
also, if you’re on linux and want to try this out, there’s this native app I’m using Klavaro. It is also available as a Flatpak
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Opening up your request for advice with an attack on people isn’t helpful, it makes lemmy a more combative place, and will diminish the totality of advice you get.
Since your still learning typing, you have a great opportunity to program yourself with chorded keying rather then the standard touch typing. I highly recommend it, its quite the force mutiplier.
As far as learning key layout, go full immersion, print out the key layout on paper, replace your keycaps with blanks (keep the home row bumps). It will suck for a week, but your more likely to learn the layout by touch this way. Keep playing your typing training games!
If you want to go full crazy, braille keycaps are fun
Try a typing game, there’s lots of them now in several genres. I learned to touch type in secondary school, doing the old fashioned thing of taping a sheet of paper over the keyboard (and typing under it) so you can’t see the keys. That works but I believe in the educational power of games, and it’ll be more fun.
Otherwise, just practice. If you use lemmy on mobile, try switching to desktop to type more. Start writing letters to people or short stories or anything that just encourages you to type more.
Ok, I’l look into those games, I know I have to put in practice but getting started is somehow uncomfortable, that’s why I’m looking for tips to improve the experience
the limited time I spend in front of my desktop, I’m preoccupied with learning other stuff, practicing this alongside makes me slower
thanks for your reply though
I was also going to suggest some form of “make it a game”. I think maybe even more important in the beginning, is fighting the urge to backspace and fix every typo you make. Doing this will break any rhythm you may have in the moment, and in the beginning I found making it through a practice session more beneficial than correctness. Leaving error also allows you to go back and identify keystrokes (or patterns) that give you the most trouble and let you then focus on them until proficient.
Good luck!
About a year ago I finally took the time to learn it. Just make sure you know which finger should hit which keys. And then do a bunch of practice. My favorite way to to practice is Monkey type. Its all about the muscle memory. Doesn’t take as long as you’d think ether. About 20 hrs of practice and I was just as fast as I was before. Then you will start getting really fast if you keep it up.
Good day to everyone except to the neo-liberals always btching about .ml being a communist instance, we don’t care about your opinions
I would suggest getting an ortholinear keyboard. When I first switched to a Kinesis advantage, the FIRST thing I noticed was how many terrible habits I had of hitting a key with the wrong finger (even twisting my hand about, if you can believe that). Having keys in line with actual finger geometry cured that mess up real quick!
What a weird way to open a post.
Practice I guess. I learned in a hs computers class where we had to do timed assignments, copying spreadsheets and transcribing speech and such. Hunt and Peck was simply too slow to do it, we had to learn our homerow to get a pass.
Also death to neoliberalism.
Thanks for your reply, my high school equivalent never had such, our computer classes were spent in front of barely functional monitors with MS word open as we learnt the “CTRL +” commands while never as much as touching the keyboards
thanks for your support
Good day to everyone except to the neo-liberals always btiching about .ml being a communist instance, we don’t care about your oppinions.
Damn, you write a lot about people you don’t care about.
They said that they don’t care about the opinions.
They may care and see those people as a bother/problem.
I was fortunate to not only have a typing class in school, but also the only computer game my grandma had was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Now I type for a living, so hey, I guess it must have paid off.
If you’re already a hunt and peck typer, your brain wants to look at the keyboard to confirm where the key is before you press it. When learning touch typing, you’ll want to shift your focus from the keyboard to the screen.
There are formal methodologies for learning where the keys are in relation to your fingers, but imo the most important thing is to not look at the keyboard. No matter what you end up typing, it’s pretty easy to find backspace and try again. Your eyes verify on the screen if your fingers are giving the correct output, and your fingers find their way eventually.
Many students did benefit from having their hands visually obscured from them when typing. If you find you keep looking at the keyboard then you might want to look into that.
I think a lot of it is down to just having good proprioception with your hands. I can’t remember the last time I looked at my keyboard while typing so it’s possible your proprioception isn’t the greatest. Does speech to text interest you?
I never learned typing using any method, just years of practicing writing when I was younger. I think one of the biggest things that will increase your competence is to not look at the keyboard. Force your eyes away and just try to type. This will have more results if you’ve already gotten the basic key layout down at least a bit. You’ll make a lot of mistakes, and when you do try to not look, just move your finger to the next key over and try again. It’s a bit painful to do it this way, but it will make you much more comfortable over time.
I didn’t learn until I was in my fourth year of college, so it’s not too late. Dvorak is a lot easier to learn and use than Qwerty; I’ve heard Colemak is even better. It can be better to learn one where the keyfaces don’t correspond, so you’re not tempted to revert to hunt-and-peck.
