Touch typing methods

The most common method is the standard ten-finger method. Its principle is that in the starting position the fingers (except the thumbs) rest on the keys «A S D F» and «J K L ;» in the English QWERTY layout, while the thumbs rest on the space bar. The remaining keys are pressed by the fingers that can reach them most comfortably

However, this method is far from the only one. For example, there is an «alternative» ten-finger method, which many people find more comfortable than the standard one. In this method, the starting position is not «A S D F» — «J K L ;», but «A S D V» — «N K L ;» (with the index fingers placed on the bottom row). Its advantage is that the hands are positioned more naturally and the wrists are not bent outward, which is especially noticeable when the keyboard is placed close to the body. However, it also has a drawback — increased load on the little fingers, which have to press more keys and stretch farther

Both of these methods are based on the idea that each key is pressed by the same finger that can reach it most comfortably. This makes it possible to achieve very high, though not maximum, typing speed. The reason is that while sequences of letters typed with different fingers can be entered almost instantly, letters assigned to the same finger inevitably have to be pressed one after another, which negatively affects speed. This is where the adaptive typing method comes in, which is usually individual for each person: ideally, each key is pressed by whichever finger can reach it fastest at that moment. The same letter may therefore be typed with different fingers depending on the preceding and following letters. There are no strict rules or standard training systems for this approach. Mastering such a method is probably not easy, but it can make it possible to achieve extraordinary speeds (more than 600 characters per minute on average)