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I am very jealous of you -- my inability to maintain QWERTY after I switched to Colemak was what forced me to grudgingly switch back. I just couldn't do it; af

by veidr 13y ago

I am very jealous of you -- my inability to maintain QWERTY after I switched to Colemak was what forced me to grudgingly switch back. I just couldn't do it; after I became acclimated to Colemak, my QWERTY was just destroyed. I had to think about where the keys were in QWERTY, and I realized I don't even really know, because typing is a doing-without-thinking activity. So I ended up having to look, which is extremely inefficient and finally I abandoned Colemak. (I couldn't avoid QWERTY because part of my job these days entails showing people how to do things on their own computers, which aren't using Colemak.) The same thing happened when I learned Japanese; I used to be conversant in Spanish, and after I got to roughly the same level in Japanese (from living in Japan) one day I noticed that the Spanish wasn't there anymore -- I would have to think about what I wanted to say in my native English and convert it to Spanish. Seems like a way different thing, but it felt the same, because it was like an unconscious activity being supplanted by another, and thus becoming something I had to think about. Which broke it. It made me sad though, because now typing QWERTY feels idiotic. Kludgey and stupid. Colemak didn't make me a significantly faster typist (maybe it would have had I done it for more than 9 months) but it was way more comfortable.

mbrock 13y ago
I use Dvorak, and I have almost no problems typing QWERTY. But this only came after I became completely fluent in Dvorak. When I still had to think to type Dvorak, I couldn't switch to thinking about QWERTY without getting all confused. Now I just peek a little at the keyboard with QWERTY, especially for non-alphanumeric symbols, but it's no problem.
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  Same story here. There was a time during my transition to Dvorak where I kept tripping myself up if I tried to type QWERTY, but once the Dvorak layout went into muscle memory QWERTY came right back without any special effort on my part. I still have to peek, but I had to peek before I learned Dvorak too (that's why I switched to Dvorak).
- JungleGymSam 13y ago
  I had to abandon Dvorak because it killed my ability to do QWERTY. It was also an almost traumatic experience because when I was going through it I felt like I was going crazy or that I was just plain stupid. How could my brain possibly discard 20+ years of QWERTY after just a few weeks of Dvorak. But having said that I recently learned that other people have had the same experience and so now I don't feel so bad and I want to change again. /lifestory
ics 13y ago
That's quite interesting, as I've had an opposite experience (substitutions ahead). Switching to dvorak lifted my speed on it as well as qwerty, and my Japanese has only helped my French. There was certainly a lot of weirdness at the moment the two sides reached the same level– if I froze up for a second, I might start mixing in French words or reaching for Command-Q with my left pinky. The only real obstacle has been slowdowns from going 6+ months without using one or the other which isn't all that hard to work around. For typing, triggers are anything with a 'd' in qwerty including the word 'dvorak' ironically, 'the' in dvorak. With language, the rhythm and intonation are usually a dead giveaway. In your case however, the subjects are quite similar. Colemak is a change from qwerty, but it's not as overtly different from qwerty. That might make the transition easier, but it could be one of the reasons switching between them is hard. Spanish and Japanese is also an interesting combination as the sounds are, at times, quite similar (and not just due to the Portuguese loanwords, a la パン or カステラ). Perhaps your difficulty is in finding distinctive enough triggers.
JungleGymSam 13y ago
Same experience for me. I felt bad about myself but I found out other people had the same experience. So buck up. I plan to give Dvorak another swing (that was my layout of choice.)

by veidr 13y ago

mbrock 13y ago

I use Dvorak, and I have almost no problems typing QWERTY. But this only came after I became completely fluent in Dvorak. When I still had to think to type Dvorak, I couldn't switch to thinking about QWERTY without getting all confused. Now I just peek a little at the keyboard with QWERTY, especially for non-alphanumeric symbols, but it's no problem.

jjoonathan 13y ago
Same story here. There was a time during my transition to Dvorak where I kept tripping myself up if I tried to type QWERTY, but once the Dvorak layout went into muscle memory QWERTY came right back without any special effort on my part. I still have to peek, but I had to peek before I learned Dvorak too (that's why I switched to Dvorak).
JungleGymSam 13y ago
I had to abandon Dvorak because it killed my ability to do QWERTY. It was also an almost traumatic experience because when I was going through it I felt like I was going crazy or that I was just plain stupid. How could my brain possibly discard 20+ years of QWERTY after just a few weeks of Dvorak. But having said that I recently learned that other people have had the same experience and so now I don't feel so bad and I want to change again. /lifestory

ics 13y ago

That's quite interesting, as I've had an opposite experience (substitutions ahead). Switching to dvorak lifted my speed on it as well as qwerty, and my Japanese has only helped my French. There was certainly a lot of weirdness at the moment the two sides reached the same level– if I froze up for a second, I might start mixing in French words or reaching for Command-Q with my left pinky. The only real obstacle has been slowdowns from going 6+ months without using one or the other which isn't all that hard to work around. For typing, triggers are anything with a 'd' in qwerty including the word 'dvorak' ironically, 'the' in dvorak. With language, the rhythm and intonation are usually a dead giveaway. In your case however, the subjects are quite similar. Colemak is a change from qwerty, but it's not as overtly different from qwerty. That might make the transition easier, but it could be one of the reasons switching between them is hard. Spanish and Japanese is also an interesting combination as the sounds are, at times, quite similar (and not just due to the Portuguese loanwords, a la パン or カステラ). Perhaps your difficulty is in finding distinctive enough triggers.

JungleGymSam 13y ago

Same experience for me. I felt bad about myself but I found out other people had the same experience. So buck up. I plan to give Dvorak another swing (that was my layout of choice.)