I never managed proper training with the correct hands positioning so my hands are a bit all over the place. But years of Twitter, Reddit and online gaming (yeah, I was that type for some time) helped a lot so now I can type fairly quickly in both QWERTY and ЙЦУКЕН.

Yes, but definitely not proper form, as my left hand rests on WASD+CTRL/Shift+Space.

I’m around 100 wpm, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

While I completely understand people who can’t get to 100 wpm (much like people at 110+ completely understand me), I cannot fathom young adults who cannot touch-type (barring disability, obviously).

Yup, I can type about 90-100 wpm on a QWERTY keyboard if it’s normal conversational English. Probably half that if it’s something that contains a lot of long technical words. The thing that got me over the hump with getting good at typing was a game called QWERTY Warriors. It was a Flash-based web game that I was playing like 20 years ago, so I don’t know if it’s around anymore, but it was a tower defense game where you had to defeat enemies by typing the word underneath them. It was a pretty painless way to practice touch-typing.

Uh yes. If you can’t touch type, prioritize it. The speedup alone is worth it.

Yes, QWERTY. My dad made my brother and I use Mavis Beacon as kids (SHOUT OUT TO MAVIS BEACON!!!) and I had keyboarding class in middle school. WPM is 70 to 80 depending on what I’m typing.

Yes, QWERTY. But I’m just old enough to actually have typing class as an elective in high school, not sure if that’s still a thing in 2026. It was useful and being into tech I knew it was something I’d need to learn.

I’ll add that the keyboard you’re using is important for touch typing. Some keyboards don’t have good bumps/notches on the keys which makes it harder to do any real touch typing without looking down at the keyboard.

I recommend learning proper touch typing with the ‘correct’ finger position. Its benefit is that there’s proper movement for every finger for every key, which is mostly symmetric and very regular, and it gets ingrained in muscle memory. Hence typing anything is quick even if it’s not fast overall. The fingers ‘know’ what they must do for any letter, and it’s often faster to let them do their thing than to e.g. reach for the mouse. You can actually feel when you press a wrong key.

In case of a mistake, it’s faster to delete a few words and retype them than to move the cursor back and forth. And if you get an app like Alfred (for Mac) or Keypirinha (for Windows), you can invoke it with a shortcut and type a few letters faster than you open an app or click on some widget with the mouse — it’s often quicker to switch apps via Alfred than via cmd-tab. Likewise, when you use a keyboard-heavy app like Emacs, calling its commands becomes a breeze.

I’d like to use Dvorak or at least Colemak, but I’m concerned that all shortcuts would be messed up. Especially since I’m a user of Vim-style movements and commands.

Also, TIPP10 app is pretty nice for learning. No fluff, no extra stuff. Initially took me about a month to learn with half an hour or so a day, and about a year to fully get used to it and develop the speed.

Yes. My kids would laugh at me when I worked from home because I would not stop typing when I looked up to answer something they were asking me. I suck on the phone keyboard but good with QUERTY big keyboard. My fingers can talk on those

I learned “proper” typing form when I was in elementary school. But what really thought me touch typing was trying to chat in games. Not only do you need to stay looking at what’s happening, but you need to type fast so you can get back to playing.

I’d more or less mastered touch typing by the beginning of middle school. By high school I got to about 100wpm which is where I’ve capped out since then.

A little, I guess.

I learned to touch-type QWERTY in late 90s chat rooms. By 2006, I was bragging about my 100 WPM speed in my online dating profile. I met one girl who challenged me to a typing contest. She won, then I won, and then we called it a draw. We’ve been married for 13 years and had our third child last month.

When I was learning to touch type, I found it helpful to practice in my head even when I was away from the keyboard. Like whatever I’m thinking about, I’m picturing a keyboard in my head and where each letter of each word is. It slows my thoughts down a little, but that’s not always a bad thing.

I can touch type QWERTY, but I struggle on laptop keyboards because it’s easy to lose your position.

I have a Glove80 keyboard on my desktop, it’s very easy to stay put since the keyboard is made exactly so your hands are on the home row.

I learned how to touch type in grade school, but quickly forgot after that. It’s just not that ergonomic to keep your hands in that position. However, it did give me the necessary memory of where all the keys are. My hands can magnetically reach each key without a lot of difficulty. I could type pretty quickly if I wanted to but I’m usually limited by my speed of thought and usually make quite a few typing mistakes.

I do touch type, but I don’t use the standard finger placement. I had typing class in school, which I’m grateful for, but what really got my typing speed up were ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger.