The computer industry is sensitive to the avalanche-like growth in the number of PC users, providing retail with everything they need, from computers themselves to a wide variety of peripherals. But there is one unaccounted for nuance – the number of users working online is growing just as rapidly, and among them there is a significant percentage of those who, by their nature, have to work a lot with texts.
Alas, most of them, even with many years of experience, continue to use two fingers when typing, while controlling their movements with their eyes. It is clear that from the point of view of performance, such a method is only to be blamed. Especially considering that the ten-finger print method has been around for over a century.
But, as the famous leader of the proletariat used to say, it is never too late to learn, even if you are over 50. And the so-called keyboard simulators – programs or online services that offer their own effective teaching methods – can be of great help in mastering the technique of speed dialing. This article will be useful to those who have a desire to learn how to quickly work on the keyboard for typing. All the simulators participating in the review are distinguished by the presence of a zest that is absent from competitors. The difference in techniques is, of course, a positive factor, because, as you know, there are no identical people. So each of you will be able to find for yourself the technique that will be most effective.
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Solo on the keyboard
Perhaps this simulator (the home page of the program ) can be called an old-timer of the market. But this does not affect its relevance at all – the program is still considered very effective, offering, in addition to teaching the Russian keyboard layout, work with the Latin alphabet and a digital block.
A distinctive feature of the program is an informal approach to the learning process. Lessons alternate with theory, and we do not recommend neglecting the latter: only at first glance it seems that text digressions are given chaotically. As you learn, you will see that the systematic approach can be traced extremely clearly, and such a technique only helps the qualitative assimilation of the material.
This popular free keyboard trainer has one more feature. It keeps statistics of all your actions (the number of characters typed, the typing speed, the number of mistakes). So you have the opportunity to personally observe your level of progress in mastering the blind typing method over time.
The lessons in “Solo” are not based on a set of meaningful phrases – some may find this strange. In fact, the use of “synthetic” expressions is quite justified, because this approach contributes to the development of mechanical skills for mastering printing, regardless of the complexity of the text. And this factor is always present, even if it is invisible.
About mistakes. Here, a minimum of patience and tolerance is shown to them, so you have to come to terms with the fact that many tasks will need to be redone many times until a satisfactory result is obtained. The learning process has a hierarchical structure, each new task turns out to be more difficult than the previous one, and there are over a hundred of them in total. It is for this reason that the presence of psychological tests in the simulator does not seem superfluous.
As for the program interface, it has changed many times. The latest revision in terms of color gamut (predominance of green and gray) does not seem to be the optimal solution, but the ergonomics are at the highest level. The ease of use and the highly detailed reference section make the simulator easy to use. But there are also disadvantages – in particular, when using the virtual keyboard, you will not see prompts with which fingers to use, there will be no prompts as you complete the exercise, which makes you often refer to the description of the task.
VerseQ
The announcement of the simulator ( official site ) claims that with the help of it you can master the technique of touch typing in literally an hour. This is certainly an exaggeration. But the algorithm used deserves special attention: here you will not see techniques based on repeatability, or “coaching”. There is also no system of punishments for mistakes, as in “Solo”. Errors, of course, are taken into account in the learning process, but their detailed statistics are not kept here. And it is not even necessary: the intelligent algorithm takes into account your problem areas, whether it be letter or word combinations, when composing new tasks. However, it is still possible to see the statistics of your typing, including in dynamics – the F9 key is used for this.
In addition to the Russian layout, there is an English one, as well as a German one. There is no introductory course – you have to work with the entire keyboard from the beginning. The exercises, as in the previous example, are not meaningful text, but the text suggested for input consists of phonetically correct words, that is, they are quite pronounceable. The technique of teaching fast typing involves not only practicing keystrokes, but also the transitions between them, and this is also an important aspect.
A characteristic feature of the simulator is its “calming” color scheme and gentle nature of training – even after an hour spent at work, you are unlikely to feel irritation and fatigue. As in the previous case, the program is shareware, but here a warning about this is displayed only once, at startup, and in “Solo” – after each exercise.
True, the section of reference information here is far from perfect: it sets out the main theses on using the simulator, talks about the methodology and typing technique used, but there are no instructions for the exercises.
Typing Master
The well-known keyboard simulator ( home page ) does not support the Russian-language layout, but its value does not decrease from this – this is an example of a strictly and verified approach to teaching using scientifically based methods. You can learn the Latin keyboard layout by typing texts in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
Perhaps, the clearly expressed conservative approach to the learning process will not be to many people, but the effectiveness of the method is beyond doubt. The Typing Master training program includes the following sections:
- TouchTyping Course – the basis, teaching blind typing, it is with it that you need to start;
- SpeedBuilding Course – a course to increase the speed of typing;
- SpecialMarks Course – quick learning to work with additional characters, typed using Shift and other techniques;
- Numbers Course – a training course for typing numbers using the upper numeric row of the keyboard;
- NumericKeypad Course – Teaching blind typing on the right digital keyboard.
The methodology of studying the courses involves the assimilation of theoretical material and a workshop. Before each task, you are given the time allotted for it, but you can choose the difficulty depending on the number of mistakes made (varies within 90-98% of correct hits). There is a mode of learning new keys, when the sequences of entered characters have no phonetic meaning, but there is also a meaningful set (drill mode), when you can practice typing single words, whole sentences or paragraphs. At the end of each exercise, you can read statistics that indicate your most problematic areas to focus on.
The Typing Master program for learning fast typing on the keyboard boasts the TypingMaster Satellite, which will monitor your progress in the background and form individual exercises to correct common mistakes.
There are no complaints about the simulator interface – everything is done with great care, here you will not have any problems understanding which key to press with which finger. Typing errors are easy to spot as they are displayed as a crossed out image of incorrectly pressed keys. Other programs do not have this option.
It can be argued that you will either like the Typing Master program for teaching quick typing, or you will quickly abandon it, and this is by no means a drawback of the simulator, but its characteristic feature.
Stamina
At first glance, it may seem that in this simulator ( official site ) they decided to abandon pedagogical methods altogether. Indeed, an abundance of humor and a serious approach to learning are seemingly little compatible things. But many will like this approach.
The originality of the developers is manifested literally in everything – in the coverage of reference materials, when commenting on user actions. By the way, it is the sound that has the greatest number of complaints, but we can fix this drawback if we use the appropriate patch. It is possible to mute the sound in the program settings (option “Censorship”).
If you are not a big fan of a strict classical educational process, then you will definitely like Stamina. Several training modes are available in the simulator – “Lessons”, “Letters”, “Phrases”, you can practice in the “All symbols” section and even use the “External file” function. From a practical point of view, great attention should be paid to the lessons, which are a mixture of basic exercises in which letters, words, and whole phrases must be typed alternately. As for teaching typing on the numeric keypad, the developers themselves claim that they did not try very hard when forming the lessons, inviting the users themselves to participate in this process.
The interface of the program can also be considered unfinished – it will be difficult for the first to launch it to figure out where to start and what to press for this. But experience is a profitable business, and detailed help will help you at the initial stage to learn how to quickly type on the keyboard with both hands. There is a lot of useful material outlined here – for example, how to hold your fingers when typing blindly, and alternative ways of placing the fingers are also described.
This is one of the few applications that has Ukrainian and Belarusian layouts, and even the basic free suite uses a database of words and phrases in Ukrainian (in addition to Russian and English). This functionality can be expanded if desired.
On the official Stamina website you can download phrases for training other languages
Thus, the main “feature” of the Stamina simulator can be called the freedom of the actions provided to the user during training – there is no sequence of lessons fixed at the program level, so you can choose those that you think are the most useful. But how quickly you can learn high-speed typing is an interesting question.
Klavarog
Another interesting domestic development ( home page ). A distinctive feature of the simulator is the lack of system funding, the project is being developed thanks to donations. And it cannot be said that it was unsuccessful. At least the archive of program versions is impressive.
What else can you say about Klavarog? This is a very interesting symbiosis of Stamina (lack of a strictly defined educational process) and VerseQ (formation of lessons taking into account previous user actions, when the priority is given to problem words and letter combinations).
Makes it easier to master the keyboard by using a color scheme that you can turn on and off. There is an assistant that visually prompts which character to press with which finger, just like in Typing Master. If you no longer need these tips, you can turn them off and use the “Zen” mode, where there are no distractions from your workouts.
The educational process is organized in several directions – the study of English, Russian, digital layout, there is an Esperanto course, you can master the skills of a set of semantic constructions of programming languages (PHP, SQL, XML and some others).
There are lessons that are not related to mastering the keyboard (for example, you need to choose the correct translation of the specified word from several options, if you choose the wrong value, a penalty will follow – typing this word three times). True, the usefulness of this lesson is questionable – especially since the vocabulary is limited and over time you will learn to easily guess the right words.
In a word, you can learn how to quickly type on the keyboard here, but there are no statistics, as well as the ability to track your progress.
Bomb
The name of the simulator ( official website ) speaks for itself – it is focused mainly on the children’s (school) audience.
Therefore, the interface of the program is appropriate, “cartoonish”. True, adults can also try it, and many of them will have complaints about the intuitiveness of using individual elements of the simulator. In particular, each exercise should begin by pressing the Start button, which is not always easy to find. And the compliance of the pictograms with their purpose is not always objective: for example, an image of a rag is used to exit the lesson.
To master the program, you should carefully read the reference materials, and this is a separate appendix. It is from them that you can learn that you need to start learning with an introductory course, in which children will learn the initial placement of fingers and get acquainted with the functionality of a computer keyboard. And only after that it makes sense to move on to the actual lessons. Mastering the skills of fast typing is carried out in the form of a game: it is necessary to track the movements of jumping “chips” in order to reproduce them exactly.
The simulator takes into account the level of mastering the material, forming new tasks taking into account the previous lessons. Difficulty levels here can be passed with a certain result, and more specifically – with three high marks.
However, “Bombina” is able to teach not only fast typing, but also the basics of working with a computer, which will be an invaluable experience for younger students.
Comparison of the functionality of keyboard simulators
To assess the capabilities and usefulness of the programs presented here, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the summary table, which contains and systematized the capabilities of the simulators:
| Training apparatus | Layouts | Terms of Use | Functional |
| “Solo” | Russian, English, digital, German, Italian, | Shareware | Warm-up exercises, assignments, exam |
| VerseQ | Russian, English, German | Trial free period | Exercises |
| Typing Master | English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, | Trial free period | Exercises, tests, game tasks |
| Stamina | English, Russian, Ukrainian – basic, many – optional | Is free | Lessons, Phrases, Letters, Using Downloadable Text, All Symbols Mode |
| Klavarog | Russian, English, digital, Esperanto, phonetic – basic | Free, Donationware | Training, speed dialing, vocabulary, programming languages |
| Bomb | Russian, English | Free for one user, shareware in multi-user option | Exercises, games, using your own text |
We will not insist on using a specific simulator – you should try at least a few. We hope that the description we have presented will help you choose exactly the program that will speed up your assimilation of the blind typing method. Which simulator did you use? Perhaps you will offer our readers your own version? Perhaps it will be an online simulator – we did not include such in our rating. Perhaps in vain.