When did you learn to touch type?

[KaminKevCrew]

So, I'm just wondering when people learned to touch type. For me, it only happened recently, when I put the blank caps on my Daskeyboard 4... Now I'm using a pok3r, and aside from looking down for the FN layer, I can touch type now... It's an amazing feeling, so I thought I would ask when everyone learned... Now I just need to get my speed up, so I can have those crazy type test scores...

[ideus]

At junior high, I wanted to attend the electricity class, but it was full; instead, I was offered to choose between cocking or typing classes, for girls; I was motivated by the chance to meet some girls, and I was told there were more at the typing class. Now, I type very slow, still, but I was very happy then.

[KaminKevCrew]

At junior high, I wanted to attend the electricity class, but it was full; instead, I was offered to choose between cocking or typing classes, for girls; I was motivated by the chance to meet some girls, and I was told there were more at the typing class. Now, I type very slow, still, but I was very happy then.

I like this story. Side note, did you end up getting any of the girls?

[ideus]

At junior high, I wanted to attend the electricity class, but it was full; instead, I was offered to choose between cocking or typing classes, for girls; I was motivated by the chance to meet some girls, and I was told there were more at the typing class. Now, I type very slow, still, but I was very happy then.

I like this story. Side note, did you end up getting any of the girls?

You know girls at Jr. H. they pick you up, before anyone else jumps, just for the sake of win, they will drop you a few days later.

[chyros]

I don't touch type .

[Glissant]

I learned to touch type after I got my first computer. I think I was 11 going on 12, and I found my way onto IRC where typing fast became a game because we were all in so many different channels and private messages that I couldn't be looking down while other people were talking.
I didn't start following "home row" until I joined this forum though, and I think my speed increased more than it had in years because I focused on using all my fingers. My pinkies never really got any play before.

[CPTBadAss]

I took typing classes in elementary school. So I think since age 10.

[KaminKevCrew]

I learned to touch type after I got my first computer. I think I was 11 going on 12, and I found my way onto IRC where typing fast became a game because we were all in so many different channels and private messages that I couldn't be looking down while other people were talking.
I didn't start following "home row" until I joined this forum though, and I think my speed increased more than it had in years because I focused on using all my fingers. My pinkies never really got any play before.

Yeah, I mainly use my pinky for shift and ctrl duties... I haven't gotten used to using them for normal typing yet...

I took typing classes in elementary school. So I think since age 10.

I took classes in elementary as well. Too bad they weren't a focus at all (I think the class occured all of two or three times in a year.) Anyway, I thought it was incredibly stupid that the computer didn't just know when a word was over, and that you had to hit the spacebar every word. Geeze, that bugged the crap out of me.

[zslane]

Jr. High typing class circa 1978. I loved it because I was really into typewriters and the idea of writing fiction as a kid.

Of course, computers came along a few years later and sort of ruined me. I still touch type but I am sloppier now; I also don't use my right hand for shifting left-hand keys to uppercase. I just use my left pinky. That habit embedded itself into my muscle memory because back in the day, keyboards only came with one Ctrl key and my left pinky just picked up all chording duties.

[njbair]

I learned early for my generation, about 2nd grade. My dad was a big computer geek and had a typing tutor program. By the time I reached junior high I was already doing ~50 WPM. But I didn't tell my keyboarding class teacher, so she thought I was an incredibly fast learner.

The next year we moved and switched school systems so I was able to take keyboarding again, instead of a foreign language or something hard.

[KaminKevCrew]

I learned early for my generation, about 2nd grade. My dad was a big computer geek and had a typing tutor program. By the time I reached junior high I was already doing ~50 WPM. But I didn't tell my keyboarding class teacher, so she thought I was an incredibly fast learner.

The next year we moved and switched school systems so I was able to take keyboarding again, instead of a foreign language or something hard.

Sounds like someone cheated the system

[raymogi]

I learn it around 17 years ago during a computer lesson. Never bother to properly learn about it though since I didn't like to program at all back then.

Kinda "perfected" it a couple years ago when I started to like keyboards.

[dante]

Around 16/17 years old.  We learned on typewriters (Yes I'm a dinosaur.)

[njbair]

I learned early for my generation, about 2nd grade. My dad was a big computer geek and had a typing tutor program. By the time I reached junior high I was already doing ~50 WPM. But I didn't tell my keyboarding class teacher, so she thought I was an incredibly fast learner.

The next year we moved and switched school systems so I was able to take keyboarding again, instead of a foreign language or something hard.

Sounds like someone cheated the system

Isn't that what school is supposed to teach you how to do?

[nubbinator]

Technically I still don't know how to touch type.  I started as a hunt and peck and slowly stopped looking and using more fingers.  I have to cheat and look sometimes and I'm sure I have all kinds of bad habits.  I don't do too poorly though and average about 70WPM.

[njbair]

Technically I still don't know how to touch type.  I started as a hunt and peck and slowly stopped looking and using more fingers.  I have to cheat and look sometimes and I'm sure I have all kinds of bad habits.  I don't do too poorly though and average about 70WPM.

I would call typing with a cat on your arms a bad habit.

[nubbinator]

Technically I still don't know how to touch type.  I started as a hunt and peck and slowly stopped looking and using more fingers.  I have to cheat and look sometimes and I'm sure I have all kinds of bad habits.  I don't do too poorly though and average about 70WPM.

I would call typing with a cat on your arms a bad habit.

Hey, the cat decided it wanted to cuddle.  Forcing it away is usually a bad idea.

[Grim Fandango]

About 10 years ago.

I spent a lot of time behind the PC, yet I did not know how to touch type. My girlfriend pointed out this was odd. I agreed. Somehow I slipped through the cracks and never once had a typing lesson.

That day I downloaded and installed a simple touch typing exercise, and practiced for about an hour. I kept doing that for about a week until I could touch type well enough to type about 25 WPM (which is painfully slow and much slower than I "hunt and pecked"). I figured that was fast enough to get stuff done, even if it was at a snails pace. I switched cold turkey that day and never looked back. It did not even take that long to get to a pretty normal typing speed. In perhaps a months time it was no longer a pain in the behind. And in probably half a year (I do not remember) I typed faster than I ever did before.

I remember that it was not the speed that made touch typing so nice. It was the fact that I could type without having to look down at the keyboard. It seems like such a small thing, but it really makes doing anything on the PC that requires typing a much nicer experience.

[Hyde]

They offered typing class as an option in grade 10, and now I really glad I took it.

Though chatting with 3-4 girls at the same time back then definitely helped me type faster. 

[njbair]

I already posted, but I have a second qualifying story.

I learned Dvorak about 9 years ago. I had been reading about oldschool Apple II developers, who predominantly used Dvorak. In fact, the original Apple II plastic case had a small opening in the back with two screw holes where a switch could be mounted. This was made for a QWERTY/Dvorak switch. In fact, any Apple II owner with a soldering iron and the right info could wire up their own Dvorak hardware switch. I decided I had to know more about this "elite" layout, and after some more reading on the subject I ended up at A Basic Course in Dvorak (http://gigliwood.com/abcd/) and I haven't looked back since.

I've toyed with Colemak since then, but I don't think I have the gumption to switch cold-turkey like that again. I was single at the time, and my job didn't involve typing.

[tararais]

I switched layouts to Dvorak, so there's obviously no point in doing that if I couldn't touch type! Before I could do it on QWERTY also, but switching made it a necessity.

[trizkut]

I took typing classes in elementary school. So I think since age 10.

Same here.  We had this typing program in the 4th-5th grade called Type to Learn with all these silly typing games. 

[KaminKevCrew]

They offered typing class as an option in grade 10, and now I really glad I took it.

Though chatting with 3-4 girls at the same time back then definitely helped me type faster. 

I can imagine...

Technically I still don't know how to touch type.  I started as a hunt and peck and slowly stopped looking and using more fingers.  I have to cheat and look sometimes and I'm sure I have all kinds of bad habits.  I don't do too poorly though and average about 70WPM.

I would call typing with a cat on your arms a bad habit.

Hey, the cat decided it wanted to cuddle.  Forcing it away is usually a bad idea.

I found this little exchange thoroughly enjoyable...

I learned early for my generation, about 2nd grade. My dad was a big computer geek and had a typing tutor program. By the time I reached junior high I was already doing ~50 WPM. But I didn't tell my keyboarding class teacher, so she thought I was an incredibly fast learner.

The next year we moved and switched school systems so I was able to take keyboarding again, instead of a foreign language or something hard.

Sounds like someone cheated the system

Isn't that what school is supposed to teach you how to do?

Well, I mean... Yeah, I suppose... At my high school (I came in as a Sophomore, so I didn't have to take it) there was a typing test that all of the freshman did. On that test, once you finished, you could change the last two numbers in the URL, and that would change your score. That's how most students got around the test, but honestly... The requirement was 44wpm... It's not like that's very difficult, especially for someone of my generation (I graduated high school in 2014...) Also, I went to a private school and just about everyone spent a bunch of time on their macbooks... So they really had no excuse...

About 10 years ago.

I spent a lot of time behind the PC, yet I did not know how to touch type. My girlfriend pointed out this was odd. I agreed. Somehow I slipped through the cracks and never once had a typing lesson.

That day I downloaded and installed a simple touch typing exercise, and practiced for about an hour. I kept doing that for about a week until I could touch type well enough to type about 25 WPM (which is painfully slow and much slower than I "hunt and pecked"). I figured that was fast enough to get stuff done, even if it was at a snails pace. I switched cold turkey that day and never looked back. It did not even take that long to get to a pretty normal typing speed. In perhaps a months time it was no longer a pain in the behind. And in probably half a year (I do not remember) I typed faster than I ever did before.

I remember that it was not the speed that made touch typing so nice. It was the fact that I could type without having to look down at the keyboard. It seems like such a small thing, but it really makes doing anything on the PC that requires typing a much nicer experience.

I agree with the whole looking down thing... Now, I just have to think about what I want to type, and my hands kind of do their own thing... It's really nice...

Around 16/17 years old.  We learned on typewriters (Yes I'm a dinosaur.)

Typewriters are really cool. My mom has a couple still. To be fair, it wasn't that long ago that typewriters were the thing to use...

I already posted, but I have a second qualifying story.

I learned Dvorak about 9 years ago. I had been reading about oldschool Apple II developers, who predominantly used Dvorak. In fact, the original Apple II plastic case had a small opening in the back with two screw holes where a switch could be mounted. This was made for a QWERTY/Dvorak switch. In fact, any Apple II owner with a soldering iron and the right info could wire up their own Dvorak hardware switch. I decided I had to know more about this "elite" layout, and after some more reading on the subject I ended up at A Basic Course in Dvorak (http://gigliwood.com/abcd/) and I haven't looked back since.

I've toyed with Colemak since then, but I don't think I have the gumption to switch cold-turkey like that again. I was single at the time, and my job didn't involve typing.

I switched layouts to Dvorak, so there's obviously no point in doing that if I couldn't touch type! Before I could do it on QWERTY also, but switching made it a necessity.

To the two of you, I've been thinking about switching to DVORAK, predominantly, but I'm also curious about COLEMAK. Is colemak faster or something? (I'd like to type as quickly as possible, because I have a friend I need to beat at type tests...)

I took typing classes in elementary school. So I think since age 10.

Same here.  We had this typing program in the 4th-5th grade called Type to Learn with all these silly typing games.

I had some kind of typing program in elementary, but as I said, we only ever used it once or twice...

[fanpeople]

At junior high, I wanted to attend the electricity class, but it was full; instead, I was offered to choose between cocking or typing classes, for girls; I was motivated by the chance to meet some girls, and I was told there were more at the typing class. Now, I type very slow, still, but I was very happy then.

What does a cocking class involve? Think i would have rathered that.


Also after i got my SSK i thought i should step up my game and be a worthy owner. So about a year ago i learnt to touch type.

[KaminKevCrew]

At junior high, I wanted to attend the electricity class, but it was full; instead, I was offered to choose between cocking or typing classes, for girls; I was motivated by the chance to meet some girls, and I was told there were more at the typing class. Now, I type very slow, still, but I was very happy then.

What does a cocking class involve? Think i would have rathered that.


Also after i got my SSK i thought i should step up my game and be a worthy owner. So about a year ago i learnt to touch type.

Cocking class sounds like the best kind of class...

[SamirD]

It was back in 1989 I think.  I was maybe 14?  I think it was 10th grade (I graduated at 16--skipped kindergarten).  I had to take an elective, so this was it.

We worked on IBM typewriters that also had a digital mode where you could type the whole sentence and then hit enter and it would type it out.  But it was really easy to hear when that was being used because it sounded like a machine gun every line, haha.  We had to type one at a time and use corrective papers to backspace over and fix mistakes.  It was so tedious that even though I had speed since we had a computer at home with an M on it and a commodore 64, I started focusing on accuracy.  Unfortunately, I've gotten sloppy since the typewriter days.

There were three of us that started to fly much faster than the rest of the class--we were all 50+ wpm when the best of the rest was hitting 35.  So we were put in an adjacent room by ourselves on wordperfect 5.1 on IBM ATs with--you guessed it the Model F.  We were so fast on those systems that we'd have the entire assignment done in 20 minutes and then play spacewar for the remaining 40.  And the crazy thing is since we had an IBM 30-286 at home with a Model M on it, I was keyboard spoiled back then--using at F at school and an M at home. 

Looking back, it was one of the most useful classes I have ever taken.  Being able to touch type has served me now for almost 30 years.  Highly recommend typing to anyone that hasn't learned it already.  With the advent of free online typing test, there's no reason to not learn it now.

[tararais]

It was back in 1989 I think.  I was maybe 14?  I think it was 10th grade (I graduated at 16--skipped kindergarten).  I had to take an elective, so this was it.

We worked on IBM typewriters that also had a digital mode where you could type the whole sentence and then hit enter and it would type it out.  But it was really easy to hear when that was being used because it sounded like a machine gun every line, haha.  We had to type one at a time and use corrective papers to backspace over and fix mistakes.  It was so tedious that even though I had speed since we had a computer at home with an M on it and a commodore 64, I started focusing on accuracy.  Unfortunately, I've gotten sloppy since the typewriter days.

There were three of us that started to fly much faster than the rest of the class--we were all 50+ wpm when the best of the rest was hitting 35.  So we were put in an adjacent room by ourselves on wordperfect 5.1 on IBM ATs with--you guessed it the Model F.  We were so fast on those systems that we'd have the entire assignment done in 20 minutes and then play spacewar for the remaining 40.  And the crazy thing is since we had an IBM 30-286 at home with a Model M on it, I was keyboard spoiled back then--using at F at school and an M at home. 

Looking back, it was one of the most useful classes I have ever taken.  Being able to touch type has served me now for almost 30 years.  Highly recommend typing to anyone that hasn't learned it already.  With the advent of free online typing test, there's no reason to not learn it now.

 
Very interesting story, what a different time it was back then. Now everyone can type, but learning touch typing is such a simple and quick thing if you're already used to doing it all day. Took me a month from scratch, shouldn't take people used to their layout more than 3-5 days of a couple hours practice. Best thing is not having to look at the keyboard in the dark and confusing people with blank caps.

[rowdy]

I think I learned to touch type in high school.  At least I did a typing semester in high school, and I can remember one day the teacher was reciting A - B - C - D ... and I was touch-typing Z - Y - X - W ... so I either learned very quickly in that class, or already had the rudiments before I started.

I think probably a mix of the two - I had been typing using a weird 6 to 8 finger method of my own devising, and converted that into proper touch typing without too many problems.

[Air tree]

I taught my self a few years ago how to touch type, it wasn't too difficult, it took about a month for me to be able to reach my old speed.

[absyrd]

I had computer and typing classes in school, but I never actually learned how to touch-type. It did help me later on, though. I'd say I really got familiar with not looking down when I joined some hip-hop forums in 2000 or so and started AIMing with other members.

[mikes41720]

I never remembered learning how to touch type before. I have such a weird typing style, I don't really use my pinky fingers! But it's funny because I can touch type at around 110-120 WPM with this typing style. I guess it was just with the excessive use of the computer.

Now, I'm learning with the Colemak layout and that is forcing me to use all my fingers. I'm in my 3rd week or so, and I can pretty much touch type at around 60 WPM, so it's been a huge learning process, but it's been fun so far!

[Glissant]

I learned to touch type after I got my first computer. I think I was 11 going on 12, and I found my way onto IRC where typing fast became a game because we were all in so many different channels and private messages that I couldn't be looking down while other people were talking.
I didn't start following "home row" until I joined this forum though, and I think my speed increased more than it had in years because I focused on using all my fingers. My pinkies never really got any play before.

Yeah, I mainly use my pinky for shift and ctrl duties... I haven't gotten used to using them for normal typing yet...

I tried learning how to use the shift on the right side of the keyboard with my pinkie, but wasn't able to retrain my brain to do it quickly enough. It's incredibly hard to retrain yourself after years of doing one thing

[SamirD]

Very interesting story, what a different time it was back then. Now everyone can type, but learning touch typing is such a simple and quick thing if you're already used to doing it all day. Took me a month from scratch, shouldn't take people used to their layout more than 3-5 days of a couple hours practice. Best thing is not having to look at the keyboard in the dark and confusing people with blank caps.

It was.  I was so far ahead of everyone in terms of computer knowledge that just came innately that if I would have gone into the field back then, I'd probably be one of the best in the US right now.  I kid you not.  I taught my brother everything I knew as I learned it and at one point he went to a computer scholars bowl and was the top in the state.  And he mentioned there were questions they had that he knew I knew the answers to even though no one else could answer them.  A year later, my brother was put in charge of all the computer labs at the school, keeping them clean and locked down using a method I devised for locking down win3.1.  Then in my computer operations class in college I already knew all the material since I'd been calculating internal transfer rates and drive interleaves ever since the late 1980s (school was in the late 1990s). 

But I'm glad I didn't make a job of all this knowledge.  It would have turned into just a job that I would have hated--especially dealing with people with 'certificates' that didn't know jack, which now populate the industry.  People like me that know a hell of a lot aren't worth anything since we don't have certificates.  And yet, I've been awarded the Cisco community member of the month twice for my forum contributions.  Go figure.  Netgear just thanked me for my contributions yesterday, lol.

But all of this knowledge came together for a very tough task in the last two years--convert a workflow based on paper and one person into a multi-person, multi-location, digital workflow--and do it without spending almost anything.  I was able to pool together some cheap resources to create what would normally have costed $10-20k in under a grand.  And it's been working great for 2 years now.  Knowing the technology is one talent, but being able to apply that to a real-world business workflow with excellent results is something that most people still can't get right.  I find this area fascinating enough that I may turn it into work one day, but I'm still not sure.  Besides, I've got enough going on as it is.

[eternalmetal]

Earlier this year I became interested enough in owning a keyboard that was better than my crappy rubberdome Logitech that was starting to be extremely mushy, so when the keys started to stick I decided to buy a mech - QFR with blues.  It made typing become much more enjoyable, but it dawned on me that it would be even more enjoyable if I could type without my hands flying all over the keyboard.  Also the keys were easier to press and required a longer stroke to actuate, so my previous hunt and peck accuracy fell somewhat dramatically.  I had some spare time to put into typing, so I decided that it was time that I learn proper technique.  Initially I was a bit unsure whether I would be able to retrain a habit that has become so ingrained in my muscle memory over the years, but I stuck with it, and in a couple of weeks I was up to 30-40wpm.  I can now type upwards of 80wpm, but for the most part I still feel like something around 60-70 is far more comfortable.  Having full command of a keyboard from a specified position is a great feeling.

I enjoyed the blues for a while, and the light actuation force and obvious click were nice to learn on.  But eventually I started to develop an aversion to the loud clickiness of the blues, and as a heavy handed typist I thought the bottom out was quite harsh after long typing sessions.  Also, when trying to gain in typing speed, I found that I was starting to mash the keys a little bit and it was messing with my typing rhythm.  So I got an RF 87U 55g board, and while being much nicer to type on, I think I lost a little typing speed in the switch.

Technically I still don't know how to touch type.  I started as a hunt and peck and slowly stopped looking and using more fingers.  I have to cheat and look sometimes and I'm sure I have all kinds of bad habits.  I don't do too poorly though and average about 70WPM.

This sounds a lot like my old method of typing.  At one point (probably 10 years ago in Uni), I just realized that I could type with pretty high speed and accuracy without looking down, without ever previously putting much thought into it.  Probably stemmed from all of those irc/IM convos.  I have since learned to touch type (about 4 or 5 months ago), and I just tried to use my old method again and I notice that quite a bit of my finger combinations are the same as they are with proper touch typing. 

I took typing classes in elementary school. So I think since age 10.

Same here.  We had this typing program in the 4th-5th grade called Type to Learn with all these silly typing games. 

Hah, same!  The problem I had was that I just refused to take the lessons seriously, so I never developed the proper technique.  I learned just to the point of being able to pass the class, but I never applied this way of typing outside of class.

I learned to touch type after I got my first computer. I think I was 11 going on 12, and I found my way onto IRC where typing fast became a game because we were all in so many different channels and private messages that I couldn't be looking down while other people were talking.
I didn't start following "home row" until I joined this forum though, and I think my speed increased more than it had in years because I focused on using all my fingers. My pinkies never really got any play before.

Yeah, I mainly use my pinky for shift and ctrl duties... I haven't gotten used to using them for normal typing yet...

I tried learning how to use the shift on the right side of the keyboard with my pinkie, but wasn't able to retrain my brain to do it quickly enough. It's incredibly hard to retrain yourself after years of doing one thing

Before I learned how to touch type for real, I used to exclusively use the left shift, but I eventually figured out that this wasnt going to work anymore, and eventually tedious practice became habit.  It was probably one of the more difficult bad habits I had to break.

[davkol]

Started to touch type cold turkey at the age of 13, I think… I neither took any classes, nor used anything like a tutorial for practicing. In fact, I didn't practice at all. I'd just put my fingers on the home row and make the proper movements, ridiculously slowly at first and a bit faster later. I didn't care about speed back in the day—it only occurred to me, that typing without having to look at the keyboard was cool and actually even useful, because I was getting into web development at the time.

I gradually developed some poor habits, that compensated for QWERTZ inefficiency, but it eventually started to look like my hands were all over the place. Combined with some other issues related to the national layout (Czech QWERTY/QWERTZ), I decided to relearn typing from scratch, this time on Colemak though. I was 21 at that point.

I hit a plateau about two years later, and I've been touch typing in Colemak with a proper technique at slightly above-average speed (60 wpm in long runs, 80 wpm bursts) and alright accuracy (~99 %) ever since.

[Firebolt1914]

I was around 6-7 when I learned to touch type

[opensecret]

Required course in 8th grade, Fall of 1953.  A whole room full of Underwood manual typewriters with blank keyboards.  I hit 40wpm by the end of the year.  Maybe the single most useful course I ever took.

[SamirD]

Required course in 8th grade, Fall of 1953.  A whole room full of Underwood manual typewriters with blank keyboards.  I hit 40wpm by the end of the year.  Maybe the single most useful course I ever took.

Wow!  What have you seen change in keyboard feel over your lifetime?

[user 18]

I'm not sure when I learned. At this point, it feels like I've been typing for pretty much my whole life. I know I couldn't type very well at age 6-7, and I could by 12-13, so I learned it somewhere in there. I did very little in the way of formal lessons. A few classes at school of typing (never more than home position keys), but it was mostly just typing assignments and such.

I still don't type completely properly. I use all my fingers except my right pinky, but I only use my left pinky for shift and ctrl. I sometimes hit the spacebar with my right index, and sometimes hit it with one of my thumbs, it depends on where my hands are and what roll I'm coming off of. I usually can hit 80+ wpm without trouble (and correcting errors), and 90+ after I'm warmed up. Haven't quite broken 100 yet, but have made it to 99 a couple of times, so it's just a matter of practice I think.

[blueangel2323]

I actually had a "Keyboarding" class back in 6th grade. And yes, we used typewriters, not computers or "word processors" (those were still a thing back then). If that makes me sound old, it makes me feel old too, even though I'm 28.

Over the years, with more practice typing out longer and longer papers for school, I became a reasonably fast typer. However, I just recently discovered that I've been using the wrong fingers for some keys (index finger instead of middle finger for "C"; ring finger instead of pinkie for the "P" and "?"). I've been practicing using the "correct" fingers for the past few weeks but my pinkie is still accidentally hitting "[" instead of "P" all the time.

As for the number row, I've always used the number pad instead, so I can't touch-type that row at all.

[SamirD]

As for the number row, I've always used the number pad instead, so I can't touch-type that row at all.

Same here, although I fly on the number pad.  I haven't tested in many decades, but it was 2-3x my other key speed back then.

[tribade]

My parents insisted I take a typing class in elementary school.  That taught me the basics and then I honed my skills with all those countless hours on AIM 

[dutC4]

 

[Sangscienta]

Touch typing as in simply typing without looking at the keyboard? Somewhere between 6 and 12. I started using PC's early, and when I reached the 5th grade, I already did a sort of it. One of the teachers there kinda saw me do it and actually gave me some pointers and very basic training on it (nothing mandatory at all, was mostly cause he saw I had fun with it). It was very uncommon in my school for someone to actually type the way I did, and even less common for anyone to notice. Unfortunately, this didn't help me pick up girls like other guys here 

Not sure how fast I am with a keyboard I'm comfortable with. Right now, I'm using a cheap membrane AZERTY keyboard due to the circumstances, and I took the 10fastfingers test and got 53wpm with 2 wrong words. So I might get to 60-70 perhaps with my G80. Quite curious to see how I'll fare actually.

[Macsmasher]

Got my first computer about 1984. I had never learned how to type in school, but was smart enough to know that I should learn proper typing from the get-go rather than develop bad habits that I'd need to break later. My wife had a typing book showing proper finger placement for each key, so I just made myself follow that and taught myself. Never really did the hunt-n-peck thing.


I switched to Colemak in Feb 2013. Haven't typed qwerty since.

[cheddarbek]

I probably learned around 5, 6...maybe a teensy bit later.

My mother was in college at the time, so we had a computer and an internet connection so she could do research. Even at that young age I was fascinated, so she's the one who taught me how to type. I work in an office, and I can't help but cringe when I see folks who have worked here for years and years who hunt and peck and just plain don't know even the basic alpha layout.

I do still have to cheat on some of the modifiers on the number row every now and again, but on a good day with a good board, I type around 85wpm.

Going through elementary and middle school typing classes was incredibly aggravating for me. We moved around 4 or 5 times when I was a kid, and it always seemed like a new school meant a new typing class. I'll never understand why I was forced to go when I clearly knew how to type. 

[Ngt]

I always loved blank caps so I needed to learn how to properly use my keyboard. In addition I started to feel hands sore while typing. I would have muscle pain on the top of my hand and that did go away with the touch typing so my guess is that I didn't have the proper form while typing. I think I would stretch my hands way too much.

[missalaire]

We had typing classes in middle school.

[Dernubenfrieken]

I took typing classes in elementary school. So I think since age 10.

Same here.  We had this typing program in the 4th-5th grade called Type to Learn with all these silly typing games.

Yep, type to learn for me too. I didnt really learn how to type well until middle school though, when i started going on various forums and AOL instant messenger

[tofu28]

I learned from typing classes back in elementary school way back. I used to hate that class, but I guess I wouldn't have learned how to touch type otherwise.