Touch typing is one of the things I wish I could do and it would make my life SO much easier and I could get through my work so much quicker. I have tried with the help of a 'Teach Yourself' DVD to get into the habit as I didn't do typing at school in the mid-80s. (Only the girls in the bottom sets did as I recall - very discriminatory!) I've been picking around keyboards for about 25 years with a few fingers misplaced on the keys and have picked up bad habits and need to 'unlearn' what I think I know and start again. I just wish I was a bit quicker.
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj (I need a metronome)
If anyone has any tips on how to learn touch type successfully and quickly (I do not mind practising) that would be most useful.
I'm typing his with my eyes closed, so hopefully I haven't made too much of a hash of it. Let's see (eyes open...(
[Edit: can't believe I managed to flub the closing bracket. I think the main problem is that my hands would eventually get out of position and I wouldn't notice, and even if I did I wouldn't be able to recover without looking. I have to look at the keyboard to get into the right starting position.]
I learnet to tough type while at school and honed my skills while I was an AOL chat host, I had to follow the screen as if I looked at the keyboard I'd lose what was happening in the conversation!
yea i can touch type. quite odd though as i cannot do it as you are taught to do it with your five fingers. I can touch type but only by using my pointer and middle fingers and my left punky for capitals. Which is a little odd but yea...I either spend too much time on the conputer or just have a good memory of where the keys on the keyboard are placed because if I'm not at the keyboard I cannot for the life of me type. people who can do it properly can normally tell you the exac layout of the keyboard even if they are not sitting in front of one. For me to do it I need the keyboard under my finders. I make the odd mistake but I get by okay as this reply will tell you.
Jazziee, touch typing is how people were trained years ago, so us oldies will be able to, rather than be the exception. Secretaries copy-type, which is what Pull2Open us describing. Nowadays, youngsters learn to type from being on Facebook and fora all the time, or learning to code. I know my kids did. They're very fast at typing as well, but they can't touch-type.
Edit: Muggins, snap.
Edit again: I actually remember having seriously strong hands back in the days of manual typewriters! Getting your little fingers to bash down the A and semicolon keys with the same pressure as the other fingers was a challenge at first.
Yes I described copy typing but I can touch type too, which I found out when I used to write a lot of letters, again when I realise what I am doing I tend to go wrong! I just touch typed this post for example!
That was supposed to say, first i will type with my eyes closed, well that proves i can't type with my eyes closed.
Now i'll type when looking at the screen.
Perfect
Now i;ll tyoe when looking at something else
So close :mad:
Finally i will type when looking at the keyboard
Young people are so funny aren't they, most of the modern technology in use today was thought of, created, invented by people much older than them, many of them so old that they are long dead
edit: Remember the old Adler typewriters, god they were hard to press down
Ha yes, they invented everything, and I remember thinking like that when I was a youngster too, so I really can't pull them up for that. I try to impress on my grown-up family that that was how I was, but it doesn't sink in (just as it didn't with me either!)
I can't honestly remember Adler typewriters, and I can't recall which ones we used on my typing course. It might have been them, because they do look familiar on Google images. I do remember all 20 of us trying to get into the room first so we could avoid the ones that had a few foibles, such as a sticky space bar, or an awkward Shift key. We used to have to complete a full page of typing with zero errors, fully correct spelling and not even a half-raised or partly-faded character in sight, or we'd have to manually repeat the page before we could go any further. Kids today have got it made!
I don't know how but I do know that there are little dashes under the F and/or J keys so that you can find where you are without looking.
Yes, that's the one thing I do know and so I try and position my fingers for that, which I can, but I just get in to bad habits and it's a finger free-for-all' as I forget where the keys are. It was a nightmare typing my MA dissertation as I knew I could have done it in half of the time if I could touch-type. I play musical instruments and passed my driving test first time but for some odd reason, this muscle memory/co-ordination skill seems to constantly elude me.
Ha yes, they invented everything, and I remember thinking like that when I was a youngster too, so I really can't pull them up for that. I try to impress on my grown-up family that that was how I was, but it doesn't sink in (just as it didn't with me either!)
I can't honestly remember Adler typewriters, and I can't recall which ones we used on my typing course. It might have been them, because they do look familiar on Google images. I do remember all 20 of us trying to get into the room first so we could avoid the ones that had a few foibles, such as a sticky space bar, or an awkward Shift key. We used to have to complete a full page of typing with zero errors, fully correct spelling and not even a half-raised or partly-faded character in sight, or we'd have to manually repeat the page before we could go any further. Kids today have got it made!
Yes, I learned in a pool like that.
I remember my first job at a Structural Surveyors, had to type 20 page structural surveys with 5 carbon copies, on a daily basis. Correcting those cc's was tedious lol.
I remember my first job at a Structural Surveyors, had to type 20 page structural surveys with 5 carbon copies, on a daily basis. Correcting those cc's was tedious lol.
Ouch, yes, I can sympathise. Luckily, after leaving the course and heading into a job, most of them used electric or electronic typewriters, so things weren't as bad. But carbon copies were a total nightmare, I agree.
Pull2Open, there are two kinds of touch-typing, really, but you probably know that so I'm sorry in advance. There's the one where you're staring at your notes and typing away, not looking at either keyboard or screen, then there's the one where you're typing away and looking at the screen. The first way is how we were taught back then. Looking at our output was seen as cheating by the tutors. They were so strict! And then came audio typing, which was a dream; so much easier.
Pull2Open, there are two kinds of touch-typing, really, but you probably know that so I'm sorry in advance. There's the one where you're staring at your notes and typing away, not looking at either keyboard or screen, then there's the one where you're typing away and looking at the screen. The first way is how we were taught back then. Looking at our output was seen as cheating by the tutors. They were so strict! And then came audio typing, which was a dream; so much easier.
My ex wife's tutor used the put a barrier over her hands and keys while she typed to prevent her from looking down! Does that still happen?
Same - it was how I was trained, on old manual typewriters nearly 30 years ago. I must admit, I'm a bit more lazy in recent years, but I don't do much typing anymore.
Me too, on an Imperial with glass covered keys marked on the back:"Purveyors of typewriters to his Majesty King George VI" (Queenie's dad:D).
So it was getting on when I started using it in 1970 and even touch typing involved hammering the keys - clackety-clack-clack.
As a result I often hit my laptops keys so hard I wear them out and usually work with a tilted plugged in Dell keyboard.
The Imperial is sitting on the floor next to my desk, like some leg breaking ornament. And it weighs a ton.
Ouch, yes, I can sympathise. Luckily, after leaving the course and heading into a job, most of them used electric or electronic typewriters, so things weren't as bad. But carbon copies were a total nightmare, I agree.
Pull2Open, there are two kinds of touch-typing, really, but you probably know that so I'm sorry in advance. There's the one where you're staring at your notes and typing away, not looking at either keyboard or screen, then there's the one where you're typing away and looking at the screen. The first way is how we were taught back then. Looking at our output was seen as cheating by the tutors. They were so strict! And then came audio typing, which was a dream; so much easier.
Audio's my forte I was sought after when I worked in the USA, so few of them did audio (back then in the 80's )
My ex wife's tutor used the put a barrier over her hands and keys while she typed to prevent her from looking down! Does that still happen?
:D This has reminded me that sitting one row in front of me was an elderly male touch typist extraordinaire. He sat there deliberately looking sideways at right angles to his typewriter and smiling at everyone - like Liberace on a piano - so his audience could appreciate his typing prowess.
If I sped up while learning to touch type (ie cheating by looking at keys) he would hear it, swing round in his chair and bark at me in disgust.
I was 16 and used to cower when caught.:o:D
Me too, on an Imperial with glass covered keys marked on the back:"Purveyors of typewriters to his Majesty King George VI" (Queenie's dad:D).
So it was getting on when I started using it in 1970 and even touch typing involved hammering the keys - clackety-clack-clack.
As a result I often hit my laptops keys so hard I wear them out and usually work with a tilted plugged in Dell keyboard.
The Imperial is sitting on the floor next to my desk, like some leg breaking ornament. And it weighs a ton.
I still have to use a tilted PC keyboard, not a flat keyboard with the keys so close together - like on a laptop, can't use those at all!
I can touch type, I did a course years ago (pre computers:o ) on an old fashioned typewriter, we had to put a cover over our hands so that we didn't see the keys once we had learned where they were. It was a bore at the but worth it.
I assumed most people could touch type apart from the oldies.
That's a very strange assumption, indeed.
My mother is 75 and she is a faster and more accurate touch typist to this day than most people my age - middle forties - or most of the youngsters I see in the offices where I work. Because women of her generation and older were taught it properly and not allowed to learn bad habits.
Comments
According to her profile, jazziee is 21. So yeah, compared I am an oldie.
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj (I need a metronome)
If anyone has any tips on how to learn touch type successfully and quickly (I do not mind practising) that would be most useful.
[Edit: can't believe I managed to flub the closing bracket. I think the main problem is that my hands would eventually get out of position and I wouldn't notice, and even if I did I wouldn't be able to recover without looking. I have to look at the keyboard to get into the right starting position.]
Nope! Refuse to be an oldie in a year
It's a wonderful skill to have and if I could learn at the age that I did (30-something) anyone can.
I used to come in dead handy doing the LUT on C4 forum
Yes I described copy typing but I can touch type too, which I found out when I used to write a lot of letters, again when I realise what I am doing I tend to go wrong!
Its just takes lots of practice!
I don't know how but I do know that there are little dashes under the F and/or J keys so that you can find where you are without looking.
That was supposed to say, first i will type with my eyes closed, well that proves i can't type with my eyes closed.
Now i'll type when looking at the screen.
Perfect
Now i;ll tyoe when looking at something else
So close :mad:
Finally i will type when looking at the keyboard
Too easy :cool:
AKA the home keys!
Ha yes, they invented everything, and I remember thinking like that when I was a youngster too, so I really can't pull them up for that.
I can't honestly remember Adler typewriters, and I can't recall which ones we used on my typing course. It might have been them, because they do look familiar on Google images. I do remember all 20 of us trying to get into the room first so we could avoid the ones that had a few foibles, such as a sticky space bar, or an awkward Shift key. We used to have to complete a full page of typing with zero errors, fully correct spelling and not even a half-raised or partly-faded character in sight, or we'd have to manually repeat the page before we could go any further. Kids today have got it made!
Yes, that's the one thing I do know and so I try and position my fingers for that, which I can, but I just get in to bad habits and it's a finger free-for-all' as I forget where the keys are. It was a nightmare typing my MA dissertation as I knew I could have done it in half of the time if I could touch-type. I play musical instruments and passed my driving test first time but for some odd reason, this muscle memory/co-ordination skill seems to constantly elude me.
I remember my first job at a Structural Surveyors, had to type 20 page structural surveys with 5 carbon copies, on a daily basis. Correcting those cc's was tedious lol.
Ouch, yes, I can sympathise. Luckily, after leaving the course and heading into a job, most of them used electric or electronic typewriters, so things weren't as bad. But carbon copies were a total nightmare, I agree.
Pull2Open, there are two kinds of touch-typing, really, but you probably know that so I'm sorry in advance. There's the one where you're staring at your notes and typing away, not looking at either keyboard or screen, then there's the one where you're typing away and looking at the screen. The first way is how we were taught back then. Looking at our output was seen as cheating by the tutors. They were so strict!
My ex wife's tutor used the put a barrier over her hands and keys while she typed to prevent her from looking down! Does that still happen?
Me too, on an Imperial with glass covered keys marked on the back:"Purveyors of typewriters to his Majesty King George VI" (Queenie's dad:D).
So it was getting on when I started using it in 1970 and even touch typing involved hammering the keys - clackety-clack-clack.
As a result I often hit my laptops keys so hard I wear them out and usually work with a tilted plugged in Dell keyboard.
The Imperial is sitting on the floor next to my desk, like some leg breaking ornament. And it weighs a ton.
If I sped up while learning to touch type (ie cheating by looking at keys) he would hear it, swing round in his chair and bark at me in disgust.
I was 16 and used to cower when caught.:o:D
That's a very strange assumption, indeed.
My mother is 75 and she is a faster and more accurate touch typist to this day than most people my age - middle forties - or most of the youngsters I see in the offices where I work. Because women of her generation and older were taught it properly and not allowed to learn bad habits.