Typing Speed Benchmarks | How Many Characters per Minute Counts as Fast?

There are three units for typing speed

When people compare typing speeds and the numbers don't line up, the reason is usually the unit. The same person's typing can produce numbers more than twice as large depending on how you count.

When Japanese is typed with romaji input, one hiragana character takes about two keystrokes: “ka” is K and A, and “kyo” is the three keystrokes K, Y and O. Add the conversion key and corrections, and typing 100 Japanese characters takes a little more than 200 keystrokes. Put the other way, dividing a keystroke score by 2 gives a rough figure for Japanese characters.

Benchmarks for characters per minute

There is no official standard, but averaging the levels used by practice sites and typing tests gives roughly the following benchmarks for Japanese input. When you type while composing your own sentences, speeds 20–30% lower than this are normal.

• A level that causes no trouble in office work is roughly 60–90 characters per minute.
• Taking minutes live in a meeting tends to need around 100 characters per minute.
• For work that follows audio, such as transcription, accuracy and efficient playback control matter more than speed.
• The same person types at very different speeds when copying text and when writing their own.

Once you know your speed, you can estimate how long a piece of writing will take. If you can write a 3,000-character article at 80 characters per minute, typing alone takes about 38 minutes. In practice, thinking time is added on top, so it takes more than twice that. Reading time for your readers is covered in reading time benchmarks, and the time needed to type up audio in how long transcription takes.

How to measure your own speed

Practice sites often give scores in keystrokes, which have to be converted to get characters. Measuring with your own text gives a figure closer to your actual work. A typing speed test that combines a timer and a character counter on one screen gives characters per minute and keystrokes per minute together, with no need to time yourself and paste the result somewhere else.

1. 1

   Decide the conditions

   Decide whether you are copying text you can see or writing while you think. Measuring both shows how much of your time goes to thinking.

2. 2

   Type normally for one minute

   Straining to type fast won't give your usual figure. Stop at one minute, wherever you have got to. In the tool, timing starts with your first keystroke and stops automatically after one minute.

3. 3

   Count the characters

   Count the characters in what you typed, excluding spaces. You can paste it into a character counter, but a typing speed test shows characters per minute, keystrokes per minute, WPM and accuracy on the spot.

4. 4

   Measure three times and take the average

   With only one try, the figure moves depending on whether the text happened to be easy to type. Change the text, measure three times, and use the average as your speed.

5. 5

   Measure again a month later under the same conditions

   Measuring again with the same text in the same setting shows the effect of your practice in numbers. Keeping a record also shows when you have hit a plateau.

The order to work on to get faster

Speed improves when you work in this order: accuracy, finger placement, where you look, then conversion. Trying to type fast from the start increases the time spent fixing typos and actually makes you slower.

1. 1

   Raise accuracy first

   Practise at a speed slow enough to type without mistakes. Fixing one wrong character takes many times longer than typing it correctly.

2. 2

   Fix your home position

   Rest your index fingers on the bumps on F and J, and assign each finger its keys. If the finger you use for a key changes every time, your hands never learn it.

3. 3

   Type without looking at the keyboard

   Just removing the time spent glancing between the screen and your hands makes a noticeable difference. You will be slower at first, but you get back to speed in a week or two.

4. 4

   Convert in shorter chunks

   When typing Japanese, converting a whole sentence at once means more wrong conversions to fix. Converting phrase by phrase ends up faster.

5. 5

   Register frequently used words in the dictionary

   Add company names, standard greetings, email addresses and so on to your user dictionary or text shortcuts. In many situations this saves more time than raising your keystroke speed.

Keyboard shortcuts also translate directly into speed. While you move the cursor or select text with the mouse, your hands are off the keyboard. Jumping to the start and end of a line, selecting by word and undoing the last action each save time once you learn them.

Changes that help more than speed

Even if you type faster, the time won't shrink if you haven't decided what to write. Most of the actual working time is spent thinking and revising.

• Prepare templates: for documents with the same structure every time, reusing a skeleton is faster.
• Mix in voice input: many people speak faster than they type, and you can dictate just the draft.
• Write the headings first: once the structure is set, your hands don't stop on the body text.
• Separate revising: fixing as you write slows down both. Finish writing first, then revise.
• Review your setup: keyboard height and key feel, and your distance from the screen, change how tired you get.

Once you get used to it, voice input can produce a draft faster than typing. How to speak so you are recognised well, and how to tidy the text afterwards, are covered in tips for writing with voice input. For writing with a character limit, cutting takes more time than writing fast, so the approach in entry sheet character counts and how to write a book report can also help.

FAQ

How many characters per minute counts as fast typing?

For Japanese input, going over about 100 characters per minute while copying text puts you in the fast group. A level that causes no trouble in office work is 60–90 characters per minute, and taking minutes by following what is said in a meeting calls for around 100. With romaji input, one hiragana is about two keystrokes, so dividing a practice site's keystroke score by 2 gives a rough character figure. When you write while composing your own sentences, speeds 20–30% lower are normal.

How should I measure my own typing speed?

The easy way is to type normally for just one minute and count the characters you typed. A typing speed test handles timing and counting on one screen and shows characters per minute, keystrokes per minute, WPM and accuracy together. Count characters excluding spaces. Counting the characters that remain at the end, without retyped ones, gives a figure you can use to estimate real work. One try varies with how easy the text is, so measure three times with different texts and take the average. To see the effect of practice, measure again a month later under the same conditions.

How do WPM and Japanese characters convert?

WPM (words per minute) is an English measure that counts 5 characters, including spaces, as one word. So 40 WPM is about 200 keystrokes per minute. With romaji input for Japanese, one hiragana is about two keystrokes, so 200 keystrokes is roughly 100 characters. Japanese also involves conversion and fixing wrong conversions, so the actual character count is lower. Units that measure different things can't be converted exactly, so treat this as a rough guide.

Where should I start to type faster?

Start with accuracy, not speed. Fixing one wrong character takes many times longer than typing it correctly. First slow down to a speed where you make no mistakes, fix your home position with your index fingers on the bumps on F and J, and assign each finger its keys. Practising without looking at your hands is slower at first, but you get back to your old speed in a week or two and then improve. Registering frequently used words in your user dictionary and learning keyboard shortcuts also cut working time more than keystroke speed does.