Tips

Anyone can get better at typing by building up the right habits a little at a time. On the other hand, chasing speed alone with your own improvised way of typing tends to stall at some point. This page introduces the basic ideas behind touch typing, typing without looking at the keyboard, together with how to practice them in Kneading Cat Typing.

1. Learn the home position by feel

Touch typing starts from the home position, the basic place where your fingers rest. Put your left index finger on F and your right index finger on J, and line the other fingers up on the same row. From the little finger, the left hand rests on A, S, D and F, and the right hand on J, K, L and the symbol key to the right of L. Both thumbs rest lightly on the space bar.

Most real keyboards have small bumps on the F and J keys so you can find them with your fingertips without looking. The on-screen keyboard in this app marks F and J with a small line as well. After pressing a key, bring your finger back to the home position as soon as you can. If you learn every key as “which direction and how far from the home position”, your sense of where the keys are becomes steady.

That is why the first rank in this app uses only the home row. Even if it feels too easy, getting your fingers used to where they belong makes a big difference to everything that follows.

2. Stick to each finger’s keys

In touch typing, which finger types which key is more or less fixed. Basically, each finger on the home row is responsible for the keys directly above and below it. The index fingers also take one more column toward the center (G, T and B for the left hand; H, Y and N for the right), so they have more keys than the other fingers.

If you let a convenient finger reach over to some other key, it may be quicker in the moment, but your finger movements change every time and the key positions never settle in. At first, put typing each key with its assigned finger ahead of speed, even if it is slower. The Right Paw and Left Paw ranks in this app are split by hand so that you learn each hand’s keys without mixing them up. On the number row, 6 is typed with the left hand and 7 with the right.

3. Accuracy before speed

When you want to improve quickly, it is tempting to type fast, but accuracy is what you should build first. Fixing a typo takes far longer than typing slowly and correctly. And if you keep practicing fast but inaccurate typing, the mistakes themselves turn into habits.

In this app, typing stops right at a typo and you cannot go on until you fix it with Backspace. The timer keeps running meanwhile, so frequent mistakes naturally lower your score. Because scores count only correctly typed characters, typing on without mistakes is the shortest way to a better score. First get to where you can finish a question with almost no typos, and then raise your rhythm little by little.

4. Look at the screen, not your hands

Typing while looking at the keyboard makes your eyes move back and forth between the screen and your hands, and your typing stops each time. When you lose track of where a key is, look at the on-screen keyboard at the bottom instead of your hands. The key you press lights up and the next key to type is marked, so you can check key positions without taking your eyes off the screen.

5. Learn romaji as finger patterns (for learners of Japanese)

When typing Japanese in romaji, you get faster by learning each sound as one chunk of finger movement, such as か (ka) or しゃ (sha), rather than letter by letter. For kana that can be spelled in more than one way, pick the spelling that is easiest for you and always use it. This app accepts any of the spellings, so choose the one that suits you. Katakana must be typed while holding Shift, which is also good practice in keeping Shift held down until the last letter of the katakana.

6. Ways to keep practicing

Typing is a skill that sticks better with a short session every day than with long sessions now and then. Try to make a habit of just a few questions a day.

• Review ranks you have passed: in practice mode you can retype questions from any rank you have passed. When a new rank feels hard, warming up with the previous rank helps you get back into the rhythm.
• Aim for your personal best: your best score for each question is recorded and shown in the question menu too. A small goal such as beating yesterday’s score by a little helps you keep going.
• Use the passing score as a guide: while you type, “score/passing score” is shown. The passing score is calculated for each question from how far your fingers travel between keys, so questions with many distant keys have lower passing scores. Even if you fall short, take it as a target suited to that question.
• Rest when you are tired: tension in your shoulders and wrists makes your fingers stiff and leads to more typos. Sit up straight, keep your wrists slightly raised, and tap lightly with your fingertips. When you feel tired, take a break.

What each rank covers is on the Ranks page, and the controls are explained in How to Play.