Beginner course

Learn to type properly

Four steps, in order, with nothing to sign up for. The whole course is four web pages and about fifteen minutes of practice a day — the rest is repetition.

The one rule that matters

If you take nothing else from this course: stop looking at the keyboard. Every other habit — finger placement, posture, drills — exists to make that possible. Your eyes cannot be on the screen and the keys at the same time, and that round trip, not your finger speed, is what holds most people at 35 WPM.

It will feel awful for about a week. That is not a sign you are doing it wrong; it is the cost of the switch, paid once.

A realistic four week plan

This is roughly how a month of short daily sessions goes for someone starting from two-finger typing. Treat the targets as checkpoints, not deadlines.

Week 1

Finding every home-row key without looking down

Home row only, hands covered, eyes on the screen. Painfully slow on purpose.

Week 2

15–25 WPM at high accuracy

Add the top and bottom rows. Keep the pace where your accuracy stays above 95%.

Week 3

30–40 WPM, still accuracy first

Full sentences with capitals and punctuation. Start the Weakness Doctor drills.

Week 4

A steady pace you can hold for five minutes

Longer runs — three and five minute tests — to build stamina rather than peak speed.

Four mistakes that cost the most time

Chasing speed on day one

Typing fast and sloppy teaches your hands the wrong movement, and unlearning it takes longer than learning it properly. Set accuracy as the target and let speed arrive.

Glancing down between words

A quick look feels harmless, but the round trip between screen and keyboard is the single biggest limit on your speed. Cover your hands if you have to.

Practising only what you are good at

Everyone drifts towards comfortable words. Your weak keys stay weak unless the practice material is deliberately built around them.

Resting your wrists on the desk

Anchored wrists force your fingers to stretch instead of your hands to move. Keep the wrists floating and the forearms roughly level with the keyboard.

Where the adaptive part comes in

Nothing on this site asks you to trust a model with your practice plan — there is no model. What it does instead is cheaper and more useful: every character you mistype is recorded in your browser along with the two-character transition you were in the middle of, and the Weakness Doctor builds word sets weighted towards that material. It is the difference between typing random words and typing the words that contain your actual problem.

For variety, Custom Topic mode builds a passage about any subject you name — useful when generic word lists have gone stale.

Frequently asked questions

Is this typing course free?
Yes. Every lesson, drill and test on this site is free and needs no account. Your progress is stored in your own browser.
How long should each practice session be?
Ten to fifteen minutes a day is better than an hour once a week. Typing is muscle memory, and muscle memory responds to frequency rather than long sessions.
In what order should I use these pages?
Finger placement first, then the beginner practice guide, then the drills page once you can type without looking. Use a timed test weekly to check progress rather than every day.
Do I need to learn touch typing if I am already fast?
If you type above 60 WPM with your own technique and no pain, there is little to gain from relearning. Below that, or if you look at the keyboard, proper finger placement raises your ceiling significantly.
Will my speed drop while I learn?
Yes, sharply, for about a week. Everyone who switches from hunting keys to touch typing goes through it. It lasts days, not months, and the ceiling afterwards is far higher.