5 ms·

I've been active in my typing practice since I was about 4, and once I'm warmed up I can usually hit high 120s with 100% accuracy on unseen MonkeyType using a q

I've been active in my typing practice since I was about 4, and once I'm warmed up I can usually hit high 120s with 100% accuracy on unseen MonkeyType using a qwerty keyboard with red Cherry switches. If I ignore accuracy and go for 'raw' speed, I am able to achieve significantly faster WPM, typically between the range of 140s-180s. The issue I run into with programs like these is that I have to read/match the expected words. Even if I can see the words ahead of time and have a moment to try and memorize, I just go so slow trying to get the correct words. To contrast this, when I write for fun, and know what I want to say ahead of time, I'm fairly certain I'm able to burst into the low 200s (don't have a solid way to test to be sure unfortunately). Depending on the complexity of the error, Grammarly usually spits out correct solutions when I'm around that 75% error rate. The vast majority of the time I'm able to auto-correct everything with a single click. The only exception is when my hands drift and I end up typing something like 'gppnst' instead of 'foobar'. What I mean to get at is that it's somewhat dependent on the types of errors that are made. If it's easily auto-correctable errors at 75%, awesome, the person is hitting an incredible WPM, if instead it needs to be corrected by human thought, then I would completely agree with you. The real benefit to this speed/accuracy is that when writing long-form text, rather than say programming, the speed of typing can either match or exceed the thought process. There is a huge amount of utility in this approach and the keyboard becomes a true extension of the mind. I'm still waiting to find a good real-time auto-correct that doesn't screw with my flow at high WPM, I'd pay pretty good money to have something that just works out of the box. On a practical note, I've considered trying to hit the numbers that the author claims, but I'm already so limited by my own train of thought. With the additional finger/wrist strain (And yes, there is _significant_ strain when these levels are approached for any length of time) I just don't see the costs making sense when everything can be fixed in just a few clicks after typing a great many paragraphs of text.

Sebb767 5y ago
> An activity that it is easy to learn the basics of, but difficulty to gain proficiency in, may be described as having "a steep learning curve". It's the same for me. I doubt I can hit 200 WPM, but when I'm typing what I'm thinking (like right now) I'm significantly faster than when I type something I've never read, especially if it's just random words. On the other hand, I've never been much into measuring my WPM (I can type sufficiently fast for everything I need), so I just assumed this was a skill one can train to actually get those insane scores.
patall 5y ago
Monkeytype also has a 'zen' mode where it measures the speed of you typing whatever you want.
- bluejellybean 5y ago
  Thanks for the heads-up, I just tried it out, somehow never noticed it before!
fouc 5y ago
I'm guessing that hands drifting only happens when you're really pushing for speed and get sloppy?
- bluejellybean 5y ago
  Combination of things, if I'm cold (literally and figuratively) or I'm still warming up, if I'm really pushing hard, or when I've been going too long and the fatigue sets in. I don't really know how common it is among other typists though, I've found I've gotten sloppier over the years due to auto-correct and google search 'guessing' being pretty damn fantastic. Another story, when I was middle school, I took what I thought was a computer programming class that turned out to be a god awful typing class. Of maybe 30 kids, over half would completely fail to complete the assignment during the hour. The students that got through it were almost all my video game/computer geek friends. I personally hated the class as I thought it was a complete waste of time as I could already type fairly well. The carrot on the stick was that you could surf the internet, play games, whatever, if you completed the the assignment. Considering that the internet was wildly faster than my dial up line at home, I would burn through the class as fast as I could, literally always finishing before everyone else, spending 15 minutes tops on it. Well, one day midway through the semester I overheard another student asking the teacher how I was always done so fast. This guy was a completely smug hard ass and was apparently a 'computer guy' prior to his teaching career. He had the gual to say it was only because I would make so many mistakes and that I was such a sloppy typists that I wouldn't be worth much to anyone later on. During the next class I made a point to hit 100% accuracy, declaring loudly to him so that the entire class would hear. I did that the entire rest of the semester, I loved it, he never showed his smugness towards me after that. Still really bugged me though, I realized even back then that computers were getting _good_ and handling typos, and that highly accurate typing was mainly for suckers. As an aside, this was all during the era of the 'Ask Jeves's' of the world, I switched to google simply because it was so damn good at understanding the intent behind my typos. Incredibly, they're _still_ the only auto-correct I've used that understands and corrects the drifts!
greggsy 5y ago
> when I write for fun, and know what I want to say ahead of time, I'm fairly certain I'm able to burst into the low 200s (don't have a solid way to test to be sure unfortunately). What do you estimate your actual WPM to have been when you wrote your whole comment? I find that it can take time to think about what I need to put down, and often need to edit and re-phrase for my audience. The whole WPM thing focuses on pure technical ability and ignores that there is more to writing than being a stenographer.
- bluejellybean 5y ago
  I love that this thread popped up when it did, as part of a new years resolutions of sorts I decided to start writing short stories and have been thinking about this topic quite a lot. For me it depends, when I know exactly what I need to say, it's pretty quick 70-80 WPM or so, that's with the pauses, edits, etc.. If am really struggling to come up with the words, it's probably closer to 10 or 20. One of the perks of being able to burst type though, and I don't really have a better term for it, I'm able to just kinda tense my muscles and 'jiggle' my fingers in fast succession, is that I can backspace and move the cursor _very_ quickly on the edits. Typing is a means to an end though, the hardest part of writing is ensuring the communication fits the bill. If the bug is tricky, for example, my words per minute can turn into words per day :) Being a programmer probably allows me to be faster than a lot of other speed typers for specific tasks, but I'm nowhere near as fast as they tend to be for straight word counts where the numbers tend to look like 100% accuracy at 200+ WPM. As an example, I always set my text editors to backspace both words, and sentences (ctrl+backspace, and shift+backspace). This trick, jiggling, and good searching, allows me to move through code _much_ faster than most other programmers I've meet. The only exceptions have been people who've setup and mastered vim, (sorry emacs folks, I've just never encountered any of you in the wild) and I've been slowly been working on gaining proficiency there. Another user pointed out that there is a zen mode for monkeyType, I'm trying it out on this post. I just sat down to write for the night and I'm using this as my warmup (going this fast requires it for me). I knew a good bit of what I've wanted to say as I started this post but there have been some pauses and edits. MonkeyType claimed 72 for this comment, bit faster than I would have guessed, I'm curious as to how realistic that number really is!

Sebb767 5y ago

> An activity that it is easy to learn the basics of, but difficulty to gain proficiency in, may be described as having "a steep learning curve". It's the same for me. I doubt I can hit 200 WPM, but when I'm typing what I'm thinking (like right now) I'm significantly faster than when I type something I've never read, especially if it's just random words. On the other hand, I've never been much into measuring my WPM (I can type sufficiently fast for everything I need), so I just assumed this was a skill one can train to actually get those insane scores.

patall 5y ago

Monkeytype also has a 'zen' mode where it measures the speed of you typing whatever you want.

bluejellybean 5y ago
Thanks for the heads-up, I just tried it out, somehow never noticed it before!

fouc 5y ago

I'm guessing that hands drifting only happens when you're really pushing for speed and get sloppy?

bluejellybean 5y ago
Combination of things, if I'm cold (literally and figuratively) or I'm still warming up, if I'm really pushing hard, or when I've been going too long and the fatigue sets in. I don't really know how common it is among other typists though, I've found I've gotten sloppier over the years due to auto-correct and google search 'guessing' being pretty damn fantastic. Another story, when I was middle school, I took what I thought was a computer programming class that turned out to be a god awful typing class. Of maybe 30 kids, over half would completely fail to complete the assignment during the hour. The students that got through it were almost all my video game/computer geek friends. I personally hated the class as I thought it was a complete waste of time as I could already type fairly well. The carrot on the stick was that you could surf the internet, play games, whatever, if you completed the the assignment. Considering that the internet was wildly faster than my dial up line at home, I would burn through the class as fast as I could, literally always finishing before everyone else, spending 15 minutes tops on it. Well, one day midway through the semester I overheard another student asking the teacher how I was always done so fast. This guy was a completely smug hard ass and was apparently a 'computer guy' prior to his teaching career. He had the gual to say it was only because I would make so many mistakes and that I was such a sloppy typists that I wouldn't be worth much to anyone later on. During the next class I made a point to hit 100% accuracy, declaring loudly to him so that the entire class would hear. I did that the entire rest of the semester, I loved it, he never showed his smugness towards me after that. Still really bugged me though, I realized even back then that computers were getting _good_ and handling typos, and that highly accurate typing was mainly for suckers. As an aside, this was all during the era of the 'Ask Jeves's' of the world, I switched to google simply because it was so damn good at understanding the intent behind my typos. Incredibly, they're _still_ the only auto-correct I've used that understands and corrects the drifts!

greggsy 5y ago

> when I write for fun, and know what I want to say ahead of time, I'm fairly certain I'm able to burst into the low 200s (don't have a solid way to test to be sure unfortunately). What do you estimate your actual WPM to have been when you wrote your whole comment? I find that it can take time to think about what I need to put down, and often need to edit and re-phrase for my audience. The whole WPM thing focuses on pure technical ability and ignores that there is more to writing than being a stenographer.

bluejellybean 5y ago
I love that this thread popped up when it did, as part of a new years resolutions of sorts I decided to start writing short stories and have been thinking about this topic quite a lot. For me it depends, when I know exactly what I need to say, it's pretty quick 70-80 WPM or so, that's with the pauses, edits, etc.. If am really struggling to come up with the words, it's probably closer to 10 or 20. One of the perks of being able to burst type though, and I don't really have a better term for it, I'm able to just kinda tense my muscles and 'jiggle' my fingers in fast succession, is that I can backspace and move the cursor _very_ quickly on the edits. Typing is a means to an end though, the hardest part of writing is ensuring the communication fits the bill. If the bug is tricky, for example, my words per minute can turn into words per day :) Being a programmer probably allows me to be faster than a lot of other speed typers for specific tasks, but I'm nowhere near as fast as they tend to be for straight word counts where the numbers tend to look like 100% accuracy at 200+ WPM. As an example, I always set my text editors to backspace both words, and sentences (ctrl+backspace, and shift+backspace). This trick, jiggling, and good searching, allows me to move through code _much_ faster than most other programmers I've meet. The only exceptions have been people who've setup and mastered vim, (sorry emacs folks, I've just never encountered any of you in the wild) and I've been slowly been working on gaining proficiency there. Another user pointed out that there is a zen mode for monkeyType, I'm trying it out on this post. I just sat down to write for the night and I'm using this as my warmup (going this fast requires it for me). I knew a good bit of what I've wanted to say as I started this post but there have been some pauses and edits. MonkeyType claimed 72 for this comment, bit faster than I would have guessed, I'm curious as to how realistic that number really is!