Every key·top row
The U key
Right index finger, top row, number 12 of the 26 letters.
- Gross WPM
- 0
- Accuracy
- 0%
- Wrong words left in
- 0
- Keystrokes / hour
- 0
- Time
- 0 s
This key, measured
- Share of all letters
- 2.83%
- Commonest letters
- 12th of 26
- Finger
- R index finger
- Row
- top row
- Words using it
- 62 of 459
U is the 12th commonest letter in English prose: 1,472,110 of the 51,993,314 letters in the 111 public-domain books this site cuts its practice texts from — 2.83%, or once every 35. On a QWERTY keyboard it sits on the top row, so the right index finger leaves the home row for it and has to come straight back. The pairs it turns up in most are UT (215,212), UR (209,925), US (178,959) going out of it and OU (577,464), BU (106,405), SU (95,619) coming into it, so those are the two-key rolls worth getting smooth. In the course it arrives in lesson 7, the R and U keys.
The pairs it lives in
Two-key rolls are what fast typing is made of: practise the pair, not the letter.
Common words with U
you · but · would · up · out · about · just · your · could · use · our · because · us · thought · found · turned
Keep going
Keep going
Typing test
Gross and net WPM, accuracy and keystrokes per hour — the figures typing exams use, at eight lengths from 15 seconds to 15 minutes.
Typing lessons
Fifteen short lessons, two new keys at a time, with the keyboard showing which finger goes where.
Practice texts
Type a passage from a classic book: real sentences, capitals and punctuation, with the numbers that say how hard each one is.
Key drills
A drill for each row, hand, finger and kind of character — and how much of English prose each set of keys actually carries.
Typing speed
What a speed means in characters, keystrokes per hour and minutes per page — and a test paced to the number you are aiming at.
Weak keys
A drill built from the keys you miss most, worked out from your own tests.
Times tables
Each table with its patterns, a drill that returns to what you got wrong, and a 60-second speed test.