Learn to type: a free touch typing course, tests and games

How to start

1. Sit up straight with your feet flat, wrists floating above the keyboard and the screen at eye level.
2. Rest your left fingers on A, S, D and F and your right fingers on J, K, L and semicolon. Use the bumps on F and J to find home without looking.
3. Start Lesson 1 in the Dojo. Read the short theory card, answer the finger quiz and type the drills while watching the screen, not your hands.
4. Follow the coloured keyboard and the glowing finger to learn which finger presses each key, and always return to the home row after a reach.
5. Finish each lesson with at least 90% accuracy to unlock the next one, earn stars and collect belts from White to Black.
6. Use Smart practice to train your weakest keys, the speed test to measure your WPM and Shuriken Storm to practise in a game.

What is touch typing?

Touch typing means typing without looking at the keyboard, using a fixed finger for every key. Instead of hunting for letters with two fingers, each finger stays near its home key and makes short, practised reaches. Because your eyes stay on the screen, you catch mistakes sooner and can read and think while you type. With practice, touch typists usually type two to three times faster than "hunt and peck" typists, with less strain on the neck and eyes.

The method is more than a hundred years old. Typing schools of the early 20th century already taught it with the same steps used here: learn the home row first, then reach up to the top row and down to the bottom row, add Shift, numbers and symbols, and finally build speed with words, sentences and timed tests.

Finger placement chart

Each finger owns a slanted column of keys. The colours match the on-screen keyboard in the Dojo:

The home row is A S D F for the left hand and J K L ; for the right hand. The small bumps on F and J let you find it by touch. Hold Shift with the little finger of the opposite hand: right Shift for left-hand letters, left Shift for right-hand letters.

The course: 8 belts from White to Black

Like in martial arts, you move up a belt each time you master a group of keys. Every lesson starts with a short theory card and a finger quiz, then introduces each new key with guided presses before the drills. Finish a lesson with at least 90% accuracy to pass; reach the target speed for two or three stars.

Posture and ergonomics

• Feet flat on the floor and your back against the chair, leaning slightly forward.
• Screen at eye level and about an arm's length away, so you do not bend your neck.
• Elbows close to your sides and bent at roughly 90 degrees.
• Wrists floating above the keyboard while you type; rest them only during pauses.
• Light, quick taps. Modern keys need very little force.
• Short breaks every 20 to 30 minutes: stretch your fingers and look into the distance.

How fast should you type?

How we measure it: one "word" is five characters, including spaces. Your WPM counts only correct characters; raw speed counts everything you typed; accuracy is the share of keystrokes that were right the first time. A speed test graph shows how your pace changed second by second.

Tips to learn faster

1. Practise little and often. 15 minutes every day beats two hours once a week; your fingers learn during the breaks.
2. Accuracy before speed. Slow down until you make almost no mistakes. Speed comes by itself.
3. Do not look down. If you are unsure, check the keyboard on the screen instead of the real one.
4. Return home after every reach. Your fingers should always come back to A S D F and J K L ;.
5. Keep an even rhythm. A steady beat is faster than bursts and pauses.
6. Train your weak keys. Smart practice and the accuracy heatmap show you which keys need work.
7. Read ahead. Look one or two words beyond the cursor so your fingers never wait.
8. Make it fun. A round of Shuriken Storm is practice too.

What makes Typing Dojo different

Interactive theory, not just drills

Each lesson explains the why: posture, home row, reach-and-return, Shift technique and more, with short quizzes like "which finger types E?" and guided key presses before the drills begin.

Animated hands on a coloured keyboard

The on-screen keyboard is drawn live: the next key glows, the matching finger reaches out from the home row, and the correct Shift key lights up for capitals.

Smart practice

Typing Dojo records your accuracy and speed for every key. Smart practice picks the three weakest keys among the letters you have learned and builds drills from real English words that contain them.

Speed test with friend challenges

Choose 30 seconds, 1, 2 or 5 minutes with common words or real passages. After the test you can send a link to a friend, who gets exactly the same text and your score to beat.

Shuriken Storm

Words fall like paper lanterns from the night sky. Type a word to throw a shuriken and slice it before it lands. Combos multiply your score and every ten words the storm speeds up.

Belt certificates

Earn a belt and download a certificate with your name, belt and best speed, ready to print or share.

A short history of the QWERTY keyboard

The QWERTY layout comes from the typewriter designed by Christopher Latham Sholes in the United States in the 1870s. Early typewriters jammed when neighbouring type bars were struck quickly, and the arrangement of the letters helped to separate common letter pairs. The Remington company put the design into mass production in 1874, and it became the standard for typewriters and later for computer keyboards. Alternative layouts such as Dvorak and Colemak exist, but QWERTY remains by far the most widely used layout for English.

Frequently asked questions