Keyboard practice. Keyboard trainer. Layouts and keyboards
If you want your child to be confident with a PC, then you need to download a computer simulator for children for Windows 10. Keyboard and mouse are the two main input tools. Even interacting with a tablet requires the ability to use a keyboard, albeit an on-screen one. The simulator will teach your child how to use the keyboard, introduce him to the arrangement of letters, and also teach him how to quickly type. Children's simulators differ from adults in that they do not allow you to learn the 10-finger method or the touch typing method.
Download keyboard simulator BINSO
Choosing the right trainer is the key to success. Good simulators are needed literally for a week if the child uses and practices daily. It is difficult to understand which simulator is the best, so we will trust user reviews. Hundreds of parents speak very well of the Russian development, the BINSO simulator. This is not just a Russified simulator, it is a simulator that was originally developed in Russia, and it takes into account all the features of Russian children, and is also ideal for the Russian keyboard. This simulator has two versions - for children and adults. The children's version has the following differences:- There is no touch typing training;
- A complete course of acquaintance with the keyboard;
- Simple tasks;
- Interactive and fun interface;
We can say that BINSO is not a simulator, but a game. So the learning process will be even more exciting for the child. The utility is suitable for all children from 3 years old, regardless of gender. The process is fascinating, but the child learns not only to type, but also to memorize. He memorizes famous verses by learning where the keys are located. The process itself is divided into 30 cycles of 5 lessons. All this can be completed in a week, and rewards are given for achieving results. You can give out sweet rewards or additional rewards. After training in this simulator, your child will start typing faster and more correctly, and even
Keyboard trainer is a computer program or online service designed to teach or improve touch typing skills. Improving the touch typing skill is an increase in typing speed, a decrease in the number of typing errors.
Blind typing or blind ten-finger typing is a quick typing on the keyboard with all ten fingers without looking at the keyboard. The blind ten-finger method has been invented for over 120 years in America.. Using touch printing, you can achieve print speeds up to 1000 characters per minute! This is of course a super-record speed, but there is no limit to perfection!
Touch typing can be learned by anyone. For this, keyboard simulators have been developed to which our site is dedicated.
Keyboard trainer? And which one to choose? This question is faced by many users who want to learn high-speed, error-free touch typing. In this article, we will look at 7 keyboard simulators that I consider to be the best, if you did not like my selection on our website, you can find a lot of other keyboard simulators.
Criteria by which we will choose a keyboard trainer:
- Price. There are paid programs and there are free ones.. Of course, all keyboard simulators on our website can be downloaded and used for free, but this is already a matter of your conscience;
- Availability of guidelines- if you will learn from scratch, you need a keyboard trainer with guidelines, you can use game keyboard trainers or programs without guidelines to develop speed;
- Language- In this article, mainly Russian-English keyboard simulators, but there are exceptions;
- Number of exercises and training time- some developers of keyboard simulators promise that you will learn to type quickly in a certain time;
- Content of the exercise.
- Program settings.
1. Keyboard Solo 9 - Most Popular Keyboard Trainer:
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3. Solo on the keyboard 8 - an early version of "SOLO" but no less in demand:
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4.VerseQ:
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5. Rapid Typing Tutor:
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7. Virtuoso - Hard Keyboard Trainer:
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The speed of performing a task on a computer may depend not only on obvious factors: processor performance or, roughly speaking, human ingenuity. Sometimes the most limiting factor is purely mechanical work, namely typing on the keyboard. Thoughts go far ahead, and the fingers do not have time to fix the text. Obviously, this situation is faced not only by writers, journalists, programmers, but also by all those who have to type text with two or three fingers without taking their eyes off the keyboard.
Surprisingly, the blind ten-finger typing method, discovered back in the 19th century, is now many times more relevant for every active computer user. Its skillful application can significantly reduce the time spent on text input.
The review includes keyboard simulators, each of which has at least one distinguishing feature among programs of this kind. Therefore, when choosing a simulator, you can navigate by the headings of the review.
"Solo on the keyboard": a reliable all-rounder
"Keyboard Solo" is the most versatile keyboard trainer, so it's worth starting the review with it. In addition to Russian, English and German, the Taming of Numbers course, which will be useful, for example, to accountants. Universal edition includes Russian, English and digital layout.
The first impression after installation can be skeptical: too informal approach. However, the further the user moves away from the beginning of the course, the more meaningful these digressions become. They allow you to take a break from fairly monotonous exercises. Perhaps the greatest benefit from textual material is recommendations on the correct pressing, posture, and correct technique, which is important with ten-finger blind typing. Looking ahead, only Solo delivers this information evenly throughout the course.
Before doing the exercises, you need to do a warm-up, which helps to adapt to the "Solo". In real time, as well as after training, you can get acquainted with the statistics: average score, speed gain, number of errors. Statistics are available not only for exercises, but also for days, it can be used to trace the dynamics of the exercises.
Keyboard trainings do not contain meaningful phrases, these are pre-prepared "synthetic" expressions - unlike, say, the VerseQ considered further, where the string for typing is formed based on user errors. By the way, in "Solo" mistakes are extremely unwelcome, often you have to redo the task several times. The requirements for passing are strict, the exercises become more difficult with each new level, of which there are about a hundred. Yes, apparently, it is not in vain that the program provides for psychological tests.
The interface of the program makes an ambiguous impression. Comparing with previous versions of Keyboard Solo, it cannot be said that the new interface, designed in gray and green tones, has significantly improved the ergonomics of the program. On the one hand, it is quite convenient to work with, all settings and elements are well documented in the help. But you can find fault with the fact that on the virtual keyboard it is not indicated which finger to press this or that key, no hints are displayed during the exercise. As a result, not having sufficient experience, you need to return to the description of the exercise.
VerseQ: learning from your mistakes
In the description of the program, what is more important is not that the user will be able to type blindly “literally in an hour” (according to the author of the simulator). Attracts something else: VerseQ uses algorithms in training that are not based on “training”, and also does not “punish” for mistakes made during exercises. Moreover, the course is based on user errors and problematic phrases, which, according to statistics, most often have difficulties. Moreover, by design, the user does not learn about his mistakes from the statistics, VerseQ imperceptibly adjusts them in further exercises. Despite this, overall statistics are displayed both during training and in the form of training dynamics by pressing F9.
Three modes of operation are available - with German, Russian and English layouts. There are no introductory exercises, in addition, all the letters of the alphabet are already initially involved. However, you should not expect that the typed text will be meaningful: as a rule, these are repeated combinations of letters that are phonetically related to each other (they can be pronounced). The technique is based not only on pressing, but also on the transitions between the keys.
A distinctive feature of VerseQ is a moderate "tone" of presentation, a soothing color scheme and a neutral design in general. It is not known how much effort it takes to exit the program in a state of irritation. By the way, if we talk about the price issue, in "Keyboard Solo" a warning about an unregistered version appears after each exercise, in VerseQ - only at the beginning of the program launch.
All the most important information is collected in a concise help file: how to use the program correctly, teaching methodology, keyboard techniques. Perhaps what is missing in this simulator is more detailed instructions for working with exercises, as is done in Solo.
Typing Master - a classic of the genre
By and large, this simulator could not be included in the review, since it does not support the Russian-language layout, but still: a) it is useful for improving touch typing skills in Latin in English, Spanish, German, French or Italian; b) The Typing Master is a great example of a structured, balanced course.
Typing Master's strict approach and conservatism will not appeal to every user, at the same time, compared to Solo, the program is presented even more concisely. Typing Master offers the following courses:
- Touch Typing Course - directly, touch typing course
- Speed Building Course
- Numbers Course - a small typing course on the top digital row
- Special Marks Course - an express course on additional characters: brackets, mathematical signs, etc.
- Numeric Keypad Course - Numeric Keypad Course
Each course consists of theoretical and practical blocks. At the beginning of the exercise, the time for completing the task is indicated, it is also proposed to choose the difficulty (from 90% to 98% of correct hits). In the mode of learning new keys (“new keys”), the letters for typing are not connected phonetically, but in the “drill” mode, you need to enter exactly the words: there are separate exercises for words, sentences, paragraphs. At the end of the task, statistics are displayed from which you can find out which keys cause the greatest difficulty.
Additionally, it is worth noting the TypingMaster Satellite - an assistant that works in the background and tracks the mistakes made, and also creates individual exercises for the most difficult combinations.
The interface was created by developers who are attentive to detail. First of all, it explains very intuitively and literally which finger to press which key, with attached keyboard diagrams. It is very useful that errors on the keyboard are displayed as crossed out keys (in other simulators this is not, which leads to several repeated errors after one wrong press).
TypingMaster does not allow you to deviate from the given program even one step and is somewhat reminiscent of dry language grammar courses. However, this cannot be called a disadvantage, but rather a characteristic feature of this simulator, which will either keep the user or repel him.
Stamina - freedom of action
After reviewing the Typing Master, Stamina turns out to be the most “non-serious” simulator in the review. The program will not appeal to users who find the developer's sense of humor inappropriate and at the same time are fully committed to learning the ten-finger typing method. Non-seriousness begins with help, all kinds of comments and ending with voice acting. To the sound - special claims made by visitors on the home page of the program. This point can be fixed with a patch or through the "Censorship" option in the Stamina settings.
Despite the foregoing, it is not worth jumping to conclusions and ignoring the simulator. It is enough to pay attention to the variety of training modes - "Lessons", "Phrases", "Letters", "All Symbols" and "External File". Of greatest interest are the lessons, which are divided into basic exercises, combinations of letters, numbers and symbols. Regarding the lessons with the numeric keypad: the developer claims that he “did not make them very hard” and invites users to participate in the development process themselves (quote: “Can you do something smarter?”).
Unfortunately, the author of Stamina placed the program with its wide capabilities in an inconvenient shell, so when starting the simulator it is not entirely clear how and in what sequence all this functionality should be handled. On the other hand, the help explains quite intelligibly the course methodology, basic concepts, typing techniques (the position of the fingers on the keyboard, etc.). Particular attention is paid to an alternative method of placing fingers on the keyboard.
The keyboard simulator can also be advised to work with the Ukrainian or Belarusian layout (that's something you won't find in other simulators). The basic distribution contains lessons in Russian, English, Ukrainian, it is possible to connect phrases in other languages.
Thus, the main feature of Stamina is the freedom of action provided to the user. Therefore, you can perform the exercises in any order, create your own course. The disadvantage of the method is that it is not known how soon concrete results can be achieved with this approach.
Klavarog - online training
Klavarog is a self-sufficient online simulator, indicating that the project can exist and develop through donations. And development progress is actually noticeable if you look at .
In Klavarog, similarly to the same Stamina, there is no set sequence like step-by-step exercises from simple to complex. The simulator fixes errors and adds problematic words to each generated line of text (the principle of operation is similar to both Stamina and VerseQ).
It is convenient to navigate the keyboard layout using the color scheme, it can be turned on in the program settings (the "fill" icon). A hint in the form of a hand is very useful, with which finger to press the desired key (a similar possibility was seen only in Typing Master). Experienced users can turn off all hints or switch to Zen mode, where there are practically no distractions.
In addition to standard courses with Russian and English layout, there are courses in digital layout, Esperanto, PHP, Python, SQL, XML/XSLT programming languages. Special attention is drawn to vocabulary exercises: you need to enter the correct translation of the word from the available options. If the word is chosen incorrectly, it must be entered three times. Thus, it is possible to kill two birds with one stone: "keyboard" and language skills are improved at the same time. True, due to the fact that the set of words is generated by the program, guessing the correct translation is quite easy.
Unfortunately, in this keyboard trainer you cannot record results, track statistics and skill development. In general, the possibility of creating an account on the site would not hurt - technically this can be implemented.
You can make your suggestions for the development of Klavarog on the page.
Bombina: a simulator for the little ones
"Bombina" occupies a free niche where there are no competitors. This simulator is designed to teach schoolchildren (rather, even children of primary school age) the blind ten-finger typing method.
The shell of the program is “cartoonish”, children should evaluate it. However, reasonable complaints may arise in adults. The interface is not intuitive in all places, and it will seem inconvenient that the navigation elements or, for example, the "Start" button at the beginning of the exercise are not clearly marked out: you have to look for them. For example, who would have thought that the image of a rag is the local analogue of the "Exit" button.
There are questions about the method of the simulator: how the training takes place, what to pay attention to parents and children. It turns out that there is a fairly detailed help that exists separately from the program. It is recommended to start "Bombina" with an introductory course, which explains in detail the placement of fingers on the keyboard, and gives a description of the keys. Then you can move on to the exercises. If in other simulators the emphasis is on transitions and keyboard chords, here you need to pay attention to jumping "chips" and repeat their movements.
The "Bombina" provides difficulty levels that affect the number of errors allowed in the exercise. You can activate auto-transition from one difficulty level to another: it will work after successfully completing the exercise with a high score at least three times.
As a result, given that the program has a lot of interactive elements, modes (there is even a logic game), it can be recommended for teaching children the basics of computers. At the very least, Bombina would be a smarter choice than an endless string of casual games.
Table 1. Comparison of keyboard simulators by functionality
| Name of the simulator | Distribution terms | Layout support | Training Modes |
| shareware | Russian, English, German, Italian, digital | Warm-ups, tasks, exercises, exam | |
| trial | Russian, English, German | Exercises | |
| trial | English, Spanish, German, French, Italian | Exercises, games, tests | |
| Freeware | English, Russian, Ukrainian + | "Lessons", "Phrases", "Letters", "All Symbols", your own text | |
| donationware | Russian, English, digital, Esperanto, phonetic + | Training, beginner, speed, vocabulary, programming | |
| Freeware (1 user), shareware (multi-user version) | Russian, English | Exercises, games, your own text |
Hello friends and colleagues! In today's article, I want to start a new series of materials on the most important skills and abilities that every modern person needs to learn. Especially for those who work remotely via the Internet or build their business on it.
I'll start with such a simple skill as touch typing with two hands. I'll tell you what it is, how to learn how to quickly type on the keyboard and what auxiliary tools exist for this.
I understood the meaning and importance of the skill one day from a conversation with a successful Internet entrepreneur, sitting in a small Indonesian warung on the island of Bali.
Let me share with you my thoughts on its benefits, which you may not even know about.
Why learn touch typing with 10 fingers
Surprisingly, I learned touch typing with two hands while still in college, trying to keep myself busy with at least something useful during the lessons. The fact is that I studied at an ordinary Russian college, where I could enter for free, since my parents were not able to pay for my education, and then I myself did not burn with the desire to strive for something, limiting myself to herd thinking.
Well, most of our teachers, I don’t know how in other educational institutions, put a big bolt on our knowledge and training, because the main thing for them is to work out study hours in order to earn money.
So, in pairs in one core subject, while the teacher played a browser game, we learned to type on keyboard simulators. There were no modern smartphones and unlimited Internet at that time, and only educational software and standard Windows games were installed on college computers.
In general, I believe that this is one of the few important skills acquired in 4 years of study, which now helps me to earn big, by the standards of Russia, money.
Time saving
The first advantage of the blind typing method with two hands for me, of course, was the typing speed, which is increasing to this day. Typing at random, it is hardly possible to develop this skill so systematically, since you have to constantly look at the monitor and at the keyboard.
Nowadays, we have begun to communicate more in writing and to be able to type quickly is already a necessity. It happens that I communicate on a social network with 10-20 people at the same time, which is unrealistic to do with live communication, since these are completely different people, including my employers, clients, friends and readers. Such a written conversation saves a lot of time.
Increase Productivity
The second plus for me is that I began to keep up with my own thoughts when writing an article and communicating. When you have to write and communicate a lot, with a low typing speed you don’t always have time to type what you just formulated in your head, and the thought is lost. Even when talking, it happens, but we speak much faster than we type on a computer.
For this reason, in our course, where we teach people to write texts, formulate their thoughts correctly and earn 20-30 thousand rubles a month without leaving home, we pay special attention to practicing correct typing on the keyboard.
Preservation of health and energy
The third and fourth pluses are the conservation of energy and health when working at a computer. No need to constantly switch attention from the monitor to the keyboard. The eyes and neck became less tired, the working capacity increased, and the chance to plant vision and ruin your health decreased.
brain development
I will finish on the fifth plus, the essence of which is that by training all the fingers of both hands, new neural connections are formed in the brain, which also affect our ability to think, learn and remember information.
From childhood, our parents teach us new skills that affect our mental and physical development. But then, when we grow up, for some reason we stop developing these skills consciously, deciding that we already know how to do everything. About such "imperceptible" skills that need to be constantly developed, for example: to be able to ask questions, to be able to build relationships, etc., I will talk about in this permanent column.
If you want to be always up to date, . Let's study them together.
How to learn to type quickly on the keyboard
The main secret here lies in the fact that you need to learn a simple technique developed by an American stenographer over a hundred years ago, and then train it continuously. The technique is the correct use of all 10 fingers.
Correct position of hands on the keyboard
The letters and symbols on the keyboard are arranged according to a special layout and divide it into 2 parts - for both hands. It is enough to understand and learn the correct position of the fingers. Here is how they should be placed.
In the following image, zones are highlighted in different colors, indicating which finger should press which button. In college, next to the computers, there was always such a color reminder picture.
Learning to type correctly is quite a complex process, it's like learning to write again or learning to write with a different hand. I remember how my hands did not obey, my fingers did not unbend and did not reach the keys.
Tags for the blind
Have you ever wondered why there are small protrusions on the keyboard on the letters “A” and “O”? They are specially made to place the fingers correctly without looking. Start typing when you find them.
Pressing spacebar and duplicate keys
I want to pay special attention to pressing the space and duplicate keys (shift, ctrl, alt) when typing a capital letter or some character. According to the rules, you cannot press 2 keys at once with one hand. That is, when, for example, you type the exclamation mark “!” - these are the shift + 1 keys, you need to press “1” with your left little finger, and “shift” with your right.
Do the same with a space, when you type a character with your left hand, put the next space with your right and vice versa.
I understand that at first it will seem wildly uncomfortable, but then the result will surprise you.
No need to rush
Don't try to type fast right away, work on your technique. Try not to peek, you can even cover the keyboard with something. At first, the speed will be very slow, but as the fingers “stretch” and muscle memory appears, it will begin to grow.
Workplace organization
I also recommend that you choose a comfortable workplace. This is important not only for mastering the touch typing method, but also for maintaining health and efficiency. Here, read an article about how to organize a place to work and what it can lead to if you sit incorrectly (the link will be later).
Constant practice
Well, the last piece of advice - never type wrong again! Having spent, starting from this moment, a month or two (maybe more) to learn, you will save tens and hundreds of hours over your whole life.
Training simulators
There are already dozens of different simulators on the Internet, some of them are free, some are paid.
Keyboard solo
Keyboard SOLO (Best) is a very old machine that I used in college. The author is a well-known psychologist and journalist Vladimir Shakhidzhanyan.
You can install a program for your computer or study online. It is constantly updated and recently the developers have made a new version of the tutorial.
It's very cool that there are consecutive lessons that train all the fingers separately. In total, you need to complete 100 classes.
In addition to the course for the Russian layout, there are also other languages. I am now studying English, because I also have to type a lot in Latin.
It has a good function - typing speed test.
Stamina
Stamina is also a very good simulator program that allows you to learn the ten-finger typing method. The course is also based on the passage of step-by-step classes.
VerseQ
VerseQ- a very simple simulator that adapts to the mistakes that you make. There are no consistent lessons and a feeling of achieving some goal, but in itself it is not bad.
VerseQ online- online version of VerseQ.
Worse analogues
- bombina
- Rapid Typing
- iQwer
- funny fingers
- Baby Type
- Clavogonki- the most popular in the game format.
- All 10
Conclusion
It takes time to master this skill, it can take months to train, until the fingers begin to obey and press the right keys automatically, without even thinking about where the right character is.
The basis of learning, of course, is the correct keystroke, not speed. Try not to make mistakes, type slowly but correctly.
It remains for me to wish you success and hope that you will not miss the next skill that I will analyze on the blog.
Leave your feedback about how you learned to type quickly and what programs you used. Bye!
In the age of the digital industry, where working at a computer is a must, being able to type quickly on a keyboard is critical. For this, many sign up for trainings, buy courses and spend a large part of their budget. However, it is not necessary to do this for everyone.
In this article, we will figure out how to learn how to type on the keyboard on your own, quickly and for free. We will give you 5 tips to get you started type quickly and correctly. Some of the tips are pretty banal, but we'll give you more. multiple applicationsto help you practice and learn faster.
1. Get rid of bad habits
The hardest thing is to stop typing the way you are already used to. If your acquaintance with the computer began with games (this happened to me), then most likely your left hand will automatically reach for the wasd keys, and your right hand will end up on the mouse. If you are not such a person, then most likely you are typing with your index fingers. You will have to get rid of such habits if you want to learn how to quickly type on the keyboard. 
2. Use all 10 fingers
The next step is to re-position the fingers on the keyboard correctly. If you take a close look at the keyboard, you will notice how the index fingers rest on each of the F keys and J keys. This will help you to correctly position your other fingers in spite of the keyboard.
It's simple, your index fingers should be on the F and J keys, and the other fingers will fall naturally on the keyboard.
In the picture below, you will notice the colored areas showing the area of application for each finger.
3. Blind printing
The next thing to do is to master touch typing. This is when you are typing and not looking at the keyboard. Having studied such printing, you can significantly increase the speed of typing and avoid possible errors and typos.
You can learn this only through practice and a couple of hours will not be enough here. It may take you several weeks before the fingers remember what each of them is responsible for. Keep practicing even if you start typing even slower than before.
4. Start using hotkeys
Not surprisingly, Windows and Mac OS have a lot of keyboard shortcuts. Since both your hands are already on the keyboard, why waste time using the mouse.
The following hotkeys are mainly used when working with text:
| Hotkeys | Descriptions |
| ctrl+c | Copy |
| Ctrl + X | cut |
| Ctrl+V | Insert |
| Ctrl + Z | cancel |
| ctrl+s | Save |
| ctrl+f | Word Search |
| Ctrl+A | Select all |
| Shift + Left Arrow or Right Arrow | Select next letter |
| Ctrl + Shift + Left Arrow or Right Arrow | Select next word |
| Ctrl + Left Arrow or Right Arrow | Move the text cursor to the next word without selecting it |
| Home | Go to the beginning of the line |
| End | Go to end of line |
| Page Up | Scroll up |
| Page Down | Scroll down |
You can also use keyboard shortcuts when browsing the web. Here are some hotkeys that can be used to navigate web browsers.
| Hotkeys | Descriptions |
| Ctrl+Tab | Switch to next tab |
| Ctrl+shift+Tab | Switch to previous tab |
| ctrl+t | Open new tab |
| Ctrl+W | Close current tab |
| Ctrl + shift + T | Open a previously closed tab |
| ctrl+r | refresh the current web page |
| Ctrl + N | Open in a new web browser window |
| backspace | Go back one page |
| Shift + backspace | Go one page forward |
Finally, here are some common keyboard shortcuts for more general (Windows) navigation.
5. Practice in services and programs
The practice of typing on the keyboard should not be too strenuous. For this, there are a huge number of different applications. Below we will look at the best free simulators for learning fast typing on the keyboard:
- Keyboard solo is a well-known simulator that helps you learn how to quickly type on the keyboard. You can buy a program from them on the website - ergosolo.ru and practice online - nabiraem.ru
- Klavagonki is a great project that gives you the opportunity to learn and compete in typing speed with other people, which turns learning into an exciting competition. The service offers a regular and premium account with full access and costs only 80 rubles per month - klavogonki.ru
- Clavarog is a free typing trainer with a simple interface. Just go to the site and fight – klava.org
- All 10 is a great free service for teaching touch typing - vse10.ru
- Stamina is the oldest project that offers a free quick typing training program - stamina.ru
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