How fast is fast?

By danishsaint - updated: 5 years, 6 months ago - 51 messages

After 10 years of working with computers, I think of myself as a pretty fast typer. But looking at the scores in here, got me kind of sad. My fastest typing rarely exceeds 80-85 wpm. - an average would be around 70 with 92-95% accuracy. I have NO idea, how someone is able to manage typing at beyond 150+
But what is fast, and what is not? - how fast do you have to type, before you can call yourself a "fast typer"?

Sincerely,

By toddhicks209 - posted: 8 years ago

I think any speed over 40 is pretty good. A speed of 70 wpm will enable you to be a legal secretary.
By raja171 - posted: 8 years ago

my typing speed is just 25. how can I improve it?
By user67219 - posted: 8 years ago

Hello, I am 11 years old, I have around 70 WPM (average), I don't think I'm the fastest, but I am really fast for my age. You can improve your WPM from playing online games with chat, that will teach you English and typing skills, you will also memorize the keyboard, so you won't need to look at it, like what I do, and that's how you get fast at typing, TRAINING.
By user400381 - posted: 8 years ago

A typing speed of around 75wpm puts you in the 95th percentile of typists on this site, 5% of other users above below you -- I would say a typing speed in the 70s is pretty good!
Updated 7 years, 8 months ago
By user400381 - posted: 8 years ago

Learn the keyboard rather than forcing yourself to hunt and peck, memorize the layout and then practice typing without looking at all -- this will vastly improve your speed. After this, you simply need to focus on accuracy and finger speed, you'll be great in no time!
By jtrex001 - posted: 7 years, 12 months ago

Honestly, I don't think those high scores are legit. I think they are using some kind of program, kind of like cheating or "hacking" in a game. I don't think it's physically possible to type 194 words per minute as I've seen on here. I could be wrong, but it would be easy for someone to come up with a program or cheat to produce those kind of scores.
By clarencebrown1990 - posted: 7 years, 12 months ago

Just keep practicing daily, take 15 minutes out of your day, I started a 30 WPM and now I'm up at 60WPM.
By chloe090106 - posted: 7 years, 12 months ago

If something travels 100 feet (or about 30 meters)
By user68092 - posted: 7 years, 11 months ago

My average is beyond 100 wpm when typing Vietnamese which is my main language. I only get 65-70 wpm in English. You should focus on accuracy and use 10 fingers of course. I've seen many people who don't use 10 fingers still can type very fast but if you want to type really fast you need to use 10 fingers. Using mechanical keyboard helps a lot too. Last but not least: practice everyday.
By yung-drip - posted: 7 years, 11 months ago

The only thing i hate, is when you mess up and have to backspace and fix the word or type it in right.
By toddhicks209 - posted: 7 years, 11 months ago

Making mistakes then having to correct them makes you better. You learn better through adversity.
By ragnar - posted: 7 years, 11 months ago

Ditto for me. I'm actually getting faster with more practice here though. Now I'm interested in finding out what my real ceiling is. It's a very practical skill, my work will benefit if I can type faster and more accurately, so I'm making the investment to practice every week.
By user68366 - posted: 7 years, 11 months ago

I managed to hit 103 WPM with 100% accuracy, but that was a lucky burn; unfortunately, I didn't have an account (at the time) to log it.

As for speed and accuracy, why's there no setting for with/without error correction? Or is this all about first-time accuracy, not end-result accuracy?
Updated 7 years, 11 months ago
By justin0 - posted: 7 years, 11 months ago

"why's there no setting for with/without error correction?"
You mean that with that "without error" setting you could type the whole quote without having to make corrections? That's a good question! I suppose it's become a tradition to make you correct your mistakes. All these websites have been improving on previous websites that in turn had been improving on even older websites and so on... and If I remember correctly most typing practice websites make you correct your mistakes.
Updated 7 years, 11 months ago
By user68195 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

How long did it take you to get from 30 WPM to 60 WPM?
I'm struggling so much right now it seems impossible to me to reach that speed!
By user68195 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

I really would like to become faster at typing. I do practice every day but it seems like I'm going no where.
I have been practicing since March 2016 and so far I'm only typing 25 to 28 words per minute. I really need to improve my speeed other wise I'm going to loose the opportunity to get a job with a better salary than the one I made today.
Please any advise and ideas to become faster?
By justin0 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

Yes, this is my advice: https://www.keyhero…
By monkey_face28 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

Hello this is my first time replying to a question, I believe that the fastest I have typed is About 30-70 Words per min. If you want to know how I do it I practice all the time on Nitro Type.
Updated 7 years, 10 months ago
By rcurry71 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

How long did that take you? (going from 30wpm to 60wpm)
By justin0 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

Hi rcurry71
My best speed 3 years, 5 months ago: 43.74 WPM
My best speed this month: 72.08 WPM.
I use my best speed in the comparison because my average speed goes up and down when I experiment with different ways of training.
By user69059 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

1 month ago i had around 40-50 WPM , now i have average 66 WPM
By tayfloz - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

I think fast enough is being able to type as fast as someone talks. So probably between 120 - 140 WPM at 98% accuracy. If you can type as fast as one of the world's fastest rappers, you're an over-achiever right there.
By tayfloz - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

playing games and typing does have it's benefits, but spending an hour a day 7 days a week has more application and consistency to it. Take it from a gamer who used to play Quake 2 & 3, Unreal Tornament, Counter Strike , TFC, and Half-Life, Natural Selection, Day of Defeat, StarCraft 1 & 2, Diablo 1, 2, 3, and a few MMOs I'm not too proud of . I'm a firm believer on total focus.
By userkeyboard - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

I feel like it depends on who you ask. A quote on this site said that a professional typist is 50-70. I asked a
coordinator of a college program I was thinking of taking; 3 courses dedicated to typing, Word processing you need 40 wpm to pass, Typing pt 1 is 45 to pass, and part 2 is about 50 to pass. This is for an Administrative Assistant, but perhaps for other types of career it is faster like ones in IT or that are more analytical and with computer use on a regular basis. My goal personally is to be at 60-70 wpm at the end of summer.
Reading the forums, I've also read 100 wpm looking to get at 200 wpm. I've also picked up from users that say this that they are typing from Asian languages as well. I wonder how that works out?
I just googled the fastest typist and came across this article: https://www.depo.co…
360 wpm and the article shares the techniques to get there. There is also a video too, however at a different speed : https://www.youtube… .Practice and control it seems, makes sense. I've been finding it very relaxing, and there are tons of free resources out there too!
Once someone becomes a fast typist you can be happy to know that you save alot of paper when taking notes on a laptop other than notebooks, but that Reddit may prompt you to wait a certain amount of time to post responses. Although I post short responses, I get dinged even at my current speed!
By justin0 - posted: 7 years, 10 months ago

That article about the fastest typist is very interesting. I suppose the Mark Kislingbury guy is talking about typing using a steno writer, which would explain the speeds of up to 360wpm he's talking about. But I like his method, because, after all, you need these two things:
1. You want your fingers to be able to move fast. To train for this you don't need to care for accuracy. (You could even train by copying a text as fast as you can without looking at what you're actually writing.)
2. You want to be accurate. Above 97% accuracy, preferrably. (For training this, you'd have to make sure you are typing accurately. This is where doing keyhero typing tests, and other types of typing, would help, I suppose.)
Updated 7 years, 10 months ago
By user69234 - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

For how many days did you practiced.
By user68366 - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

Yes, but IIRC, they take it out of your total. I've been hitting 60-80 WITH error correction, which is why I'm asking.
By justin0 - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

Yes, I see what you mean, and after reading about the method described by the guy in the link the user userkeyboard posted above (https://www.depo.co…), which reads: "We are trying to teach him to move his fingers faster, at all costs, even at the cost of accuracy." I think I want that feature too: "setting for with/without error correction." Feature request!
Updated 7 years, 9 months ago
By willjr08 - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

That's extremely good advice. In fact, before I learned my keyboard to heart, I used to be an awful at typing because the school I was attending tried to force the students to put their fingers in a specific place. As a result, I eventually decided to not use their typing format and decided to do my own thing, which involved looking. Eventually I was able to know (mostly) every key on the keyboard without looking. Now my average of 81.74 WPM with an average accuracy of 94.52%
By shabooty - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

IDK about 190s but I used to watch Twitch a lot and Reckful would stream and consistently hit 150s and even into the 170s. So 190 isn't impossible. Anything beyond that though...
By mothertrucker - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

I type at 85 WPM occasionally getting a 100+ and I honestly owe it to online games and forums. According to me 100+WPM with around 95% accuracy is pretty fast. I can't really call myself a fast typer, but then again, it is all relative.
By vriska - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

I believe it's possible. Fingers can physically move that fast.
By darryn008 - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

I just want to improve and get to 80 or 90wpm.. How do i do it? experts help please thank you
By mrswesker - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

My thought is to keep practicing! I'm at the same level right now.
By user68366 - posted: 7 years, 9 months ago

BT/DT. I got high speeds in college without using the positions. I was lucky my keyboarding professor let it slide.

As for speed AND accuracy, that perfect 105 I hit here was unfortunately likely a one-time thing...
Updated 7 years, 9 months ago
By stevejech04 - posted: 7 years, 8 months ago

I must admit I am pretty slow at the moment, I only managed 64 wpm at the moment, when I was in my younger yrs I was the top of the class when if comes to typing. Hoping this site I can improved my typing again.
By madihakhan - posted: 7 years, 8 months ago

I dont know my typing speed is very slow :/

http://roshniqurana…
By peggyrwa - posted: 7 years, 8 months ago

That's pretty good. I started typing about 4 years ago, starting with a speed of around 40 wpm. I practiced almost every single day and now I type around 80wpm - 110 wpm with a high accuracy. Keep it up, 70 wpm is already amazing!
By wright96 - posted: 7 years, 8 months ago

My average typing speed is 90 wpm, but I often go into the 100s. My highest is 108 wpm, which is not unusual for me. I grew up with my own laptop, so lots and lots of typing over the years has brought me to this point. I consider anything 100 and above to be thought of as fast. I do consider myself a fast typer.
By user366719 - posted: 5 years, 12 months ago

Hello! I am a 7th grader, and I have a typing speed of 88 wpm. I know this isn't fast, but considered around my grade, it's pretty good. However, I do have a friend who has an average wpm of around 115, and the friend told me just practicing, especially students since we do a LOT of typing for school and essays, and just typing emails and texts will help improve your typing wpm and skill. Also, if you look at the screen more, rather than your hands, and practice looking for the next word to type as you go along, your fingers will soon follow if you practice enough. Also when you're typing fast, keep your hands slightly elevated from the keyboard, so they can move faster and quicker.
By jerrythebob - posted: 5 years, 12 months ago

In the time I've used keyhero I've only managed to improve about 18 wpm, but I noticed that my average always spiked whenever I've had school essays and reports to type XD
By ze_or - posted: 5 years, 11 months ago

I type at an average of 110 wpm. And I definitely have much less than 10 years working with computers considering I only lived for 15 years. To me, I feel like above 100 is fast, and around 80 is pretty normal. But maybe it is just me.
By 95031878 - posted: 5 years, 11 months ago

I have a typing speed of 21
By mister_vulcan - posted: 5 years, 11 months ago

Eh, just because you have experience with computers doesn't mean you're automatically going to be a fast typist. Some of the fastest typists on record never used computers, because they were secretaries with typewriters. If you've ever written on an electric typewriter like an IBM Selectric, you'll notice the key action "feel" is different from most computer keyboards (springy-er?); whatever the reason those people could reach ungodly speeds (200+ wpm) with high accuracy and make the high-scorer's here look like rank amateurs.

My (unsolicited) advice: focus on technique and accuracy and get to the point where you can type your current fastest speed effortlessly & your current average becomes your worst performance. Then start going for speed. Avoid integrating bad technique into your muscle memory, only way to undo that is to tear your technique back down. Bad typing habits tend to ossify and ultimately set a cap on your speed and accuracy (expert-beginner syndrome). It goes in cycles for me - go for accuracy, then speed, then effortlessness, then tear the technique back down to remove inefficiency. Rinse and repeat.

To answer your initial question, fast is whatever you need it to be for the job you're doing, such that your thinking doesn't outpace what you're able to type down. That's what I think, anyway.
By user363245 - posted: 5 years, 9 months ago

I love how the kids in here have some of the best advice.

My casual, "slow," typing speed exceeds 70 wpm. I can type at 80-90 with one hundred percent accuracy. I know my fingers can do 100+ but I would have to know what I'm typing and it would have to be easy. I have a lot of stored words in my fingers.
By u557051 - posted: 5 years, 9 months ago

I'm lucky that starting in first grade (age 6-7), my school started typing classes for us. I attribute my speeds (average around 140-150, high speed of 171) to early training, but also continuing to practice. While it is good to start off focusing on each individual letter, once you reach a certain speed (for me it was around 90-100 WPM when I was 12 or 13) I started to notice my fingers 'memorizing' words. Typing words as a unit instead of each letter individually allows you to focus not only on the word at hand, but also allows you to read a few words ahead so you can be ready for the following words as well. However, it's important to get the 10 finger technique and memorize the location of keys before doing any of this. Take your time! You won't turn into a 120+ WPM typist overnight. It takes years of practice, and you have to keep practicing to maintain these skills!

Good luck all :)
By bitbat - posted: 5 years, 9 months ago

I dont know if i will max my typing speed or not, but i learned touch typing in grade 3 and it is all worth it.
The reason why i learned touch typing was because i was getting a ipad for assitive purposes. You see, i had a bump in my left hand that gives strain, and they removed it. I suck at handwriting and i still do today. So that is when we decided that we would get a keyboard. I learned touch typing, one lesson a day, and i got up to the speed of 40 wpm, much much faster than anyone in my grade( except my sister.) I took a typing test in grade 7 and then i thought that was slow. So i improved, and now i am up to the speed of 530 keystrokes ( 102 wpm) . But i have low accuracy and strain, so i am thinking of switching to a dvorak keyboard.
By bitbat - posted: 5 years, 9 months ago

That was about my speed in that same grade. No, that is fast! Most kids can handwrite at 20 and type at 20.
Results for other kids about my age:
15 wpm
23 wpm
32 wpm
36 wpm
49 wpm
Me: 100 wpm.
By joashmungal - posted: 5 years, 9 months ago

Work on your finger placement, learn the home row and learn to type without looking at the key board. Speed will come naturally.
By user200935 - posted: 5 years, 7 months ago

Hey,I'm in grade 9th and I'm a programmer and website developer from Iran and my typing speed is 89wpm.
I think you don't need daily training I mean I don't have specific training for typing but once a week or even once a month when I check my speed again I find that I'm improved in comparison to my last test.
So you just need more time.
You will become better If you wait.
Good luck
Bye
Updated 5 years, 7 months ago
By _noob - posted: 5 years, 6 months ago

Play games with game chat, that will be practice for you. If you keep repeating that system, you will improve. Another way is that to learn the keys, I can type with my eyes closed nor looking away. That's another good way to improve.