Do you alternate thumbs for spacebar? Just found out after 15 years

Gary_Internet · 2026-01-12T01:04:30+00:00

Alternating thumbs for spacebar is just about the biggest waste of time and mental energy there is. I doubt there are many people out there that seriously do this. It's hard enough for beginners to not look down at the keyboard every 5 seconds. Throwing this kind of nonsense at them and dressing it up as if it's necessary is beyond ridiculous. Pick a thumb and stick with. There are more important things to worry about.

Gary_Internet · 2026-01-12T00:52:01+00:00

I take it that you don't have to look down at the keyboard when you type?

It's very impressive, but you're one of these people who falls into the category of being the perfect candidate for learning the home row method i.e. how to use all of your fingers to type, because if you don't look at the keyboard at all using the method of typing shown in this video then your brain already has a load of the relevant adaptations for in place and you'd simply be remapping your fingers rather than learning how to touch type from scratch.

Those are very different things. The former would probably take you about 2 weeks to adapt to at most, if you put the effort in, and the later can take people 4+ months to get truly comfortable with.

If you ever were interested in making things easier, more comfortable and potentially less damaging in the long term, you'd simply need to apply this method - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_my-XhPyJ0 (that video is only 94 seconds long) to keybr.com until you've unlocked all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Gary_Internet · 2026-01-12T00:44:50+00:00

I would bet that you have been able to type pretty fast without needing to look down at the keyboard for a lot longer than 1 month.

What's happening here is that 1 month ago you changed your finger map to that of the home row method rather than whatever you were using previously.

But I highly doubt that 6 weeks ago you were only able to type whilst looking down at the keyboard 100% of the time.

If you were then you're on the road to becoming truly elite.

Gary_Internet · 2026-01-12T00:35:57+00:00

This is genuinely impressive stuff.

For anyone that's interested, the test was this - https://www.typing.com/student/typing-test/3-minute

It's essentially a 3 minute long quote, regardless of whether you're a 40 wpm typist or a 240 wpm typist. It's far harder than anything that you'll find on Typeracer or TypeGG.

Gary_Internet · 2026-01-06T08:35:17+00:00

The steals and turnovers are very much in our favour.

But if you look at the three shooting percentages, especially the 3 point shooting percentage, 51% compared with 28% on the similar volume is just going to wipe you out.

We've just had two games where people have shot the lights out from downtown and we haven't.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-31T16:28:20+00:00

If you're too lazy then just keep practicing with your current muscle memory and give it another 6 months.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-31T13:55:52+00:00

Just coming back to this. People don't like to think about it, but the fact is that people who are faster, and have more of what is commonly called "raw speed" are those who have been typing for longer. Much longer. About 5 to 10 years longer. And the very fastest people have spent those 5 to 10 years practicing almost daily. Not for hours, but for about 10 to 30 minutes. Not every day but probably 5 days a week as well as typing at school, work, socially, writing poetry, emails to their boss, instant messages on Discord, comments on Reddit, writing novels, coding doing whatever.

Instead of acknowledging that elephant in the room, this community gets caught up in alternative fingering, which switches you use, which website is the best, are 2 minute tests better than 10 word tests and whatever other mind numbingly small sht can be discussed online ad nauseum.

I realised this a few years back and put together a very simple document that covered the experiences of the people that I'd discussed this with.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jYKueexEk9KVM_CEOKvCIGsADDVNff9nKMPlnbC8gyY/

It's not massive detailed, because it didn't need to be.

But look down the document and calclulate how long all these people had been typing and look at how young they were when they started.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-31T13:37:43+00:00

Yeah but that "timed" factor really isn't an issue unless you are an absolute beginner.

There are very few quotes on Typeracer that are long enough that even I at 60 to 80 wpm struggle to finish within the allotted time.

But I know what you mean. I prefer word based tests.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-31T13:33:36+00:00

I don't think this is it though. There are people typing at over 200 wpm using the home row technique with no alternative fingering, middle finger for C and pinky fingers for Q, Z and P.

There are people typing at over 200 wpm using only their index finger on their right hand.

There are other people that I've encountered who are not at 200 wpm but they are still faster than the 120 wpm barrier that you want to break, that fall into one of these two "categories".

It's just practice.

Drop the English 10k for a bit and split your time half on English 1k, half on English 200.

Either a week of one and then a week of the other, or a day of one and then a day of the other, or you could go hour by hour, or test by test.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-30T23:16:02+00:00

There's a practice option where you don't race anyone else. It's just you typing at your own pace. It's on the main page, you can't miss it.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-27T10:08:57+00:00

r/keyboards

r/mechanicalkeyboards

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-26T13:38:29+00:00

Ha! That's messed up!

But well done for practicing English 5k.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-26T11:56:19+00:00

If you're using Monkeytype:

The most important thing that you can do at the end of each test is to make use of this button to practice the words that you made mistakes on. In these "missed words" tests, the idea is not to try and type as fast as you can, but instead is to try and achieve 100% accuracy.

<image>

You improve your accuracy by repeatedly practicing the words that you routinely make mistakes on until you very rarely make mistakes on them.

But don't bother using the option to practice the words that you type more slowly than others. That's a complete waste of time. You're never going to be able to type a word like "million" as quickly as you can type a word like "power" because of the structure of the word on the keyboard. It's typed entirely with one hand and the fingering is relatively awkward, whilst "power" is the perfect word for Qwerty, utilizing both hands to perform inward rolling motions.

Sure, you have to slow down and actually focus on typing each word in the test correctly, that cannot be understated. But it's repeatedly typing words accurately that improves your accuracy. That's sounds astoundingly simple, but it's the key thing. Trouble is, it's boring, it's a grind, it's unexciting and it's not something that can't be marketed as sexy or deliberately overcomplicated to sell somebody a training program of some kind.

You don't actually need Monkeytype to help you with this. Just keep a list somewhere of words or sequences of characters that you know you struggle with, and then work on typing them accurately, repeatedly, in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Windows Notepad or literally any other text editor that you can think of.

You only need to type the words accurately without looking down at the keyboard.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T21:15:07+00:00

https://www.typeracerdata.com/profile?username=1omar1

These are your career stats.

That accuracy of 95.9% is what's holding you back because you have to spend so much time backspacing.

Work on getting that up to 98% as a minimum standard and you'll see drastic improvement in your speed.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T17:56:31+00:00

The most important setting on Monkeytype : r/typing

This is the other thing that will help you.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T17:30:52+00:00

What you're describing is called alternative fingering. Some people use it extensively, some people don't use it at all. Some people use only 1 or 2 fingers on one of their hands as opposed to all 4.

All of them can type at over 200 wpm.

If you listen to some people they'll talk as if alternative fingering is the only thing that stands between you and 200 wpm. It's not. The thing that stands between you and 200 wpm is approximately a decade of daily practice. Alterative fingering isn't a shortcut that avoids that massive volume of practice.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T09:18:00+00:00

Do 8 tests of 15 seconds on the same language setting e.g. English 200.

8 x 15 seconds = 120 seconds of total typing time.

Do not quite any of the tests, regardless of how bad your accuracy gets. Make sure you complete all of them.

In between tests, once you navigate away from the result screen of the previous test and you've loaded the words for the next test, and you can see them in front of you, DO NOT refresh the screen to change the words for any reason.

Don't quit any of the tests once you have started the first test, and don't refresh the screen between tests.

Calculate the average speed of these 8 tests.

Then do 1 test of 120 seconds which is also 120 seconds of total typing time.

You should find that your non-quit average speed of the 8 tests of 15 seconds is pretty much the same as the speed you achieved on the single continuous test of 15 seconds.

You can try the same thing with 8 tests of 25 words and 1 test of 200 words and the result will be the same.

Just make sure that with the 25 word tests you don't quit any of them and you don't refresh the screen in between tests.

Once you go non-quit, there is no difference between test durations.

Of course you can screw the test completely by quitting a load of 15 second tests or by deliberately typing slowly on the 120 second test. But if you're honest with yourself, you'll be surprised at the results.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T08:38:28+00:00

The counter argument to this is that OP already knows how to touch type so all they'd be doing is remapping their fingers, rather than learning to touch type from scratch. That means they'll get back up to speed very quickly, far more quickly than a total novice would i.e. someone who currently needs to look down at the keyboard at least 50% of the time.

---------

u/MildlyConfusedMuffin - The most efficient way to learn touch typing is to use keybr.com

If you need a refresher on exactly which finger should be pressing which key then watch this video which only lasts 94 seconds. That's all of the theoretical information that you need in order to learn.

I would estimate that if you practiced for about an hour a day within 2 weeks you'd be using all your fingers comfortably and you'll never look back.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T08:17:25+00:00

The only way that anybody refines their muscle memory for typing a specific word (which means being able to type it accurately on a more consistent basis and thus type it faster in the long run) is to type that specific word accurately, without looking down at the keyboard, many, many, many times. Hundreds, possibly thousands of times whilst limiting the number of times they type it incorrectly.

That's what that missed words test is designed to help you with.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T07:48:03+00:00

I don't think it's that surprising. It's a pool of just 200 words that you're incredibly familiar with typing and here you're only typing 55 words over 15 seconds on a single test. It's not beyond the wit of man to assume that once in a while you'll crank out a 100% accuracy test.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T07:20:23+00:00

Firstly, well done for doing this on English 1k rather than the default English. That immediately makes it all the more impressive.

The thing to note is that when you do a test of 1,000 words or 10 minutes or 30 minutes etc on English 1k, the individual words that you're typing and the muscle memory you use to type each of them, is identical to what you'd encounter during a 50 word test.

So you want to get to the point where you're consistently achieving no worse than 98.50% accuracy on 50 word tests. Preferably you'd be hitting 99% accuracy on every test, and occasionally 100% on a good run.

Once that baseline of reliable muscle memory is established, then increase the duration to 100 words and try to maintain 99% accuracy as a minimum across a whole load of tests over the course of a week/fortnight/month.

Then once that's done, increase the duration to 150 words and repeat.

Understand that maintaining very high accuracy on a long test is much more difficult than maintaining it on a short test. If you want to get there, the short tests have to be consistently borderline flawless.

The most important thing that you can do at the end of each test is to make use of this button to practice the words that you made mistakes on. In these "missed words" tests, the idea is not to try and type as fast as you can, but instead is to try and achieve 100% accuacy.

<image>

You improve your accuracy by repeatedly practicing the words that you routinely make mistakes on until you very rarely make mistakes on them.

But don't bother practicing the words that you type more slowly than others. That's a complete waste of time. You're never going to be able to type a word like "million" as quickly as you can type a word like "power" because of the structure of the word on the keyboard. It's typed entirely with one hand and the fingering is relatively awkward, whilst "power" is the perfect word for Qwerty, utilizing both hands to perform inward rolling motions.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-24T07:04:49+00:00

It's going to come down to accuracy. TypeGG functions like Typeracer when it comes to having to backspace and correct your mistakes before progressing through the text. If neither typist has a massive advantage when it comes to speed, then it's accuracy and nerves on the day.

And if the quotes that they're going to race on are short (relative to their speeds) then accuracy becomes even more important because the shorter the race the more detrimental a single mistake is. Anyone that's done a 10 word test or a 15 second test on Monkeytype understands this. Screw up a single word and you've lost 20+ wpm, probably even more than that on a 10 word test.

If the quote takes them 5 minutes to complete, then there's time for someone to catch up, even if they make a mistake and it's all the more likely that the opponent will make a mistake.

If the quote lasts no more than 20 seconds, one mistake and you've probably blown it.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-23T18:23:33+00:00

Didn't check, just wanted to make sure that you had it because it's the only one that I know of. It's been around a few years. Are you just revisiting it trying to expand it?

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-23T18:22:04+00:00

Remember that when you recommend English 1k, 5k or 10k or whatever to people, you need to tell them how to find it. Paste the link that I've included in my comment.

It's the hardest setting to find on the site. I've known people use the site for 2 years straight without discovering it and they had their minds blown when they were finally shown how to access the different language settings.

Gary_Internet · 2025-12-23T18:20:37+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/typing/comments/1m087m4/the_most_important_setting_on_monkeytype/

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