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Ranks

In Kneading Cat Typing you progress through ranks that widen the range of keys you use one step at a time. Instead of facing the whole keyboard at once, you start with just a few keys on the home row, move on to the next row once your fingers are used to them, and go from one hand at a time to both hands. This page explains which keys each rank uses and how you move through the ranks.

How ranks progress

Ranks come in a fixed order, and you can only practice the ranks you have passed plus the next rank you are working on. Passing that rank’s promotion exam marks it as passed and unlocks the next one. You can go back to any rank you have passed at any time in practice mode to beat your personal best. See How to Play for what it takes to pass a promotion exam.

The rank names follow a kitten growing up: from “Apprentice” through “Stretch” and “Claw Sharpening” to “Full-Fledged”. “Right Paw” ranks use only the right hand, “Left Paw” ranks only the left hand, and “Kneading” ranks both hands.

Right Paw and Left Paw (one-handed ranks)

You start by practicing one hand at a time. The order alternates between the right and left hand at each level: Right Paw: Apprentice → Left Paw: Apprentice → Right Paw: Stretch → Left Paw: Stretch → and so on. Because both hands finish a level before either moves on, neither hand races ahead of the other.

Ranks that add a new row include a drill that goes back and forth between a home-row key and the key right above (or below) it. For example, Left Paw: Stretch has “aq sw de fr gt”, which repeats the motion of stretching a finger one row up and coming back. The aim is to learn key positions as distances your fingers travel.

The right hand’s home row (h, j, k, l), and that row plus n and m, contain no vowels, so no English words can be made from them. Those ranks use key sequences such as “hj kl lk jh” instead. In left-hand and two-hand ranks, short English sentences such as “dad has a salad” appear as more keys become available.

Kneading (two-handed ranks)

After the one-handed ranks, you move on to the two-handed “Kneading” ranks. Rows are added in the same way as in the one-handed ranks.

The promotion exams for Kneading: Apprentice through Kneading: Full-Fledged have two questions (the one-handed ranks have one). Every letter in the English questions is lowercase; you never type capital letters. This keeps the focus on key positions and distances without mixing in the Shift key.

Number and symbol ranks

Maneki-neko (Japanese typed in romaji, for learners of Japanese)

The “JIS Keyboard - Japanese (Romaji)” course is meant for people learning Japanese. After the key-position ranks and the symbol ranks, it moves on to the “Maneki-neko” ranks, where you type Japanese sentences in romaji. The questions are written in hiragana and katakana, without kanji, and are not translated.

There is more than one way to spell Japanese in romaji: し can be shi, si or ci, and ちゃ can be cha or tya. Basically, any spelling that a Japanese input method on a computer accepts is correct. The example spelling shown on screen also switches to match the spelling you started with.

Katakana must be typed while holding Shift (in uppercase). For example, アイス (aisu, “ice cream”) is typed AISU. Releasing Shift in the middle of a katakana word counts as a typo, so keep holding it until the end of the katakana. The Japanese comma 、 is typed with the comma key, the period 。 with the period key, the quotation marks 「」 with [ and ], and the middle dot ・ with the slash key. Some questions use these marks too.

Long-text ranks

At the end of each course there are ranks with long passages. They come in nine steps by approximate length: 250, 350, 400, 550, 600, 900, 1000, 1500 and 2000 characters. The English courses use English passages, and the romaji course uses Japanese passages (in hiragana and katakana). The lengths are approximate, so the actual counts vary a little.

Each long passage is a chapter of a story about one cat’s whole life, so the story continues as you move up the ranks. Each step has three passages from different stories, and the promotion exam picks one of them at random, so you do not end up memorizing the same text.

Rank order in each course

A rank you have passed in one course counts as passed in every course. For example, if you passed Right Paw: Apprentice in the US Keyboard course, you do not need to take it again after switching to a JIS keyboard course.