How did you learn to type?

[Juno]

I think it comes pretty natural to most of us these days, but it's kind of weird to think a few decades ago, typing was not a common skill - my parents and people in their generation are not proficient typers but it's a pretty integral part of many peoples' lives today.

So do you remember when and how you learned to type? Did someone teach you or did you learn yourself? With a program/typing game or you just got used to it bit by bit?

And did you learn to type "properly"? We had a typing game installed on all the school computers when I was a kid and we were taught to follow something like this, but I never really stuck to it:

 

[Percy]

How my grandparents and parents type:

Spoiler:

Typing just naturally came to me. No one taught me anything. Just did it. I remember those typing games, that was lots of fun!

 

[Auticorn]

I don't really know how I learned to type tbh. I don't like typing the normal way because it's always been a huge challenge to, so I type with two fingers. Believe it or not, but I type faster with just my two index fingers than I do with all of them. People are amazed that I can type better this way too. I tried to learn the normal way, but it just didn't work for me. :|

 

[BlazingCobaltX]

Never learned how to type properly. I am still predominately using my index finger, middle finger and thumb to type, ring and pink hardly doing anything. My mom, who followed a professional typing course as part of her job, did teach me about middle finger placement, which helped me learn to move my hands from the center of the keyboard for full utilization, but other than that I learned everything by just sitting behind a computer and typing.

I did eventually teach myself to write faster when I became active on forums. Some of those forums had a lot of members and activity, and in order to stay on top of the convo I had to type very quickly. That is definitely why I am super fast at typing now, even if I only use three fingers most of the time.

 

[Caite-chan]

I used programs at school as a kid and they taught us in high school. Though I can't really type without looking at the keyboard which was a pain when they covered the keyboards.

 

[mishy.]

When we did that typing thing i elementary i was the fatest typer. But i couldn't type the "proper way". Still can't and use four fingers rather than the whole ten iirc.

 

[donavannj]

I actually did learn the QWERTY method of typing, but not until high school in a class that was mandatory to graduate from my school. I was a slow hunt-and-peck typist before that, so learning the QWERTY typing was a vast speed improvement in a relatively short 3 months (went from 15/20 WPM up to ~35 WPM by the end of the class).

 

[Raffy98]

I don't really know to be honest, maybe the great amount of time I spent on the computer helped me a lot, but I still make a lot of mistakes which slow down my typing speed a bit, I'm trying to improve though; I mostly use my index, middle finger and thumb to type and the speed ranges from 30 to 45 WPM circa.

 

[Aether★]

For most of time typing was quite a long process for me. When i was 17 though, going to 2nd grade of my technical, there was one class that made us use the program for practising the speed of our typing on keyboard. After many lessons i managed to master it to the point i don't even look on the keyboard now while i type and do it quite fast.

 

[Sparkin]

I used to be on the PC a lot when I was a kiddo. Maybe that's why I type the fastest in my class

 

[Tsutarja]

For me, it probably came down to hours and hours of constant computer usage when I was 13 and 14 years old. To this day, I still do not think I am a perfect typist, but I at least know the location of every key on a QWERTY keyboard, and that's enough for me.

 

[wolf]

I only use my two middle fingers to type... I'm pretty fast and have the entire keyboard memorized though. But more recently I've been using this site to practice proper typing, which is surprisingly addicting.

 

[Bay]

Way back in elementary school, I first learned how to type by using something that's like a typewriter/LCD screen hybrid, similar to this but bulkier:

Basically we have this big book in front of us and we use that typewriter to practice typing.

Once my family and I got a computer, my dad bought a typing program for me and I was able to pick up the lessons fairly quickly.

 

[BillyGal]

well it was a long time ago I fund some typing programm and just learned

 

[Corrin]

I took a typing class in grade 10 to do it properly. Until then I only used one finger xD

 

[Graine]

I learned the hard way...

Spoiler:

 

[Honest]

Just years of practice for me, nothing formal. I was told one once the little nubs on the 'f' and 'j' keys were where your index fingers were supposed to be and thats the most I've gotten as far as outside help.

On the topic of keyboards, anyone type in Dvorak instead of Qwerty?

 

[LegendChu]

I have no idea what a Dvorak keyboard is.
Time for Google :')

Its a keyboard with a different layout that the "Qwerty" Keyboard.

​

I prefer Qwerty though, used to working on it.

Not had any formal training as such, but I can type quite well, without having to look at the keyboard often, have a pretty good idea where the letters are. Do make mistakes though, obviously.

Pika Pika :chu:

 

[Tsutarja]

Honestly, people taught to use a Dvorak keyboard will prefer a Dvorak keyboard over QWERTY. Too bad that neither can co-exist in typography courses, as you either learn one or the other.

 

[Honest]

Yeah, I have a coworker that grew up with Dvorak, and it's the only way he knows how to type. I think the idea behind it is that the most commonly used letters are in the center row, with the least on the bottom one, something like that.