Getting Started with Typing (for Beginners)
Plenty of people feel uneasy about the keyboard: those who suddenly need a computer at work, those returning to a keyboard after a long time, and students just starting to learn typing at school. This page shares tips for anyone new to computers or typing who is starting to type, together with how to practice in Kneading Cat Typing.
What you need
To practice typing, use a computer with a real keyboard. The on-screen keyboard of a tablet or phone does not train your fingers to learn key positions. If you practice on a tablet, connect an external keyboard. Kneading Cat Typing runs in the browser with no sign-up or installation. It is free, and you never enter a name, email address or other details, so there is no need to enter any personal information.
Choose the course that matches your keyboard. Keyboards sold outside Japan are usually US-style, so for English typing practice, “US Keyboard” is usually the right choice. Choose “JIS Keyboard - English” if you have a Japanese keyboard, and “JIS Keyboard - Japanese (Romaji)” only if you are learning Japanese.
Start with good posture
The first thing to learn is posture, even before key positions. Sit back in the chair with your back straight, and keep the screen a little away from your eyes. Put the keyboard straight in front of you, at a height where your elbows are slightly bent. If the chair is too high for your feet to reach the floor, a footrest under your feet steadies your posture.
Do not press your wrists onto the desk; let your fingertips touch the keys lightly. Tension in your shoulders and arms stiffens your fingers and causes more typos. Simply relaxing your shoulders and taking a deep breath before starting makes a difference.
Start with just eight keys
Trying to learn the whole keyboard from the start leaves you not knowing where to look. First focus only on the row of 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 up the other fingers on the same row. The F and J keys have small bumps, so you can find them by touch without looking.
The first rank in Kneading Cat Typing, “Right Paw: Apprentice”, uses only the four keys h, j, k and l on the right hand. The next, “Left Paw: Apprentice”, uses a, s, d, f and g on the left hand. Because you start one hand at a time with only a few keys, even someone touching a keyboard for the first time does not lose track of which key to press. The home position is explained in detail in Learning the Home Position.
Accuracy matters more than speed
As a beginner, aim to type without mistakes rather than to type fast. If you get into the habit of typing fast with the wrong fingers, it takes a long time to fix later. In this app, when you make a typo the kitten mews, and you cannot move on until you delete the wrong character with Backspace. Since you can never carry a mistake forward, you naturally focus on typing correctly.
Scores are calculated from the number of characters typed correctly, so typing steadily and accurately, even slowly, leads to better scores in the end. While you type, your current score and the passing score are shown right next to where you are typing, so you can see how close you are.
Short sessions, every day
Typing sticks better with a short session every day than with long sessions now and then. About ten minutes a day, a few questions, is a good place to start. When concentration fades and typos increase, it is fine to stop for the day.
To make it fun to keep going, the kitten on the left of the screen swishes its tail and kneads with its paws in time with your typing speed. When you finish at or above the passing score, the kitten celebrates at full speed for a few seconds and mews happily. Your personal best is recorded for each question, and “New record!” appears when you beat it, so you can aim to do just a little better than yesterday.
Next steps
Once the one-handed ranks feel comfortable, move on to the two-handed “Kneading” ranks and then the number and symbol ranks. Learners of Japanese who want to type Japanese in romaji can also read Practicing Romaji Input. Even if you are slow at first, a little practice every day means that one day you will notice you are typing without looking at your hands.
Note: using it with your family
- What to watch: when watching a family member practice, rather than the score, check whether their fingers go back to the home position and whether they keep looking at their hands. When they lose track of a key, encourage them to look at the on-screen keyboard at the bottom instead of their hands; it helps them keep their eyes on the screen.
- Where records are kept: ranks passed and personal bests are stored only in the browser being used and are never sent to the operator’s server. If family members share a computer, using separate browser profiles lets each keep their own records.
- Starting over: “Reset scores” in the “About this app” section at the bottom of the top page erases ranks passed and personal bests so you can start from the beginning.
- Sound: the kitten mews on typos and when a question is passed. There is no volume setting in the app, so adjust the volume on the computer or browser.