The semicolon key (;)

This key, measured

Share of all characters

0.15%

Appears

once in 689 characters

Finger

R little finger

Row

home (resting)

semicolon is not one of the letters: 96,873 of the 66,792,973 characters in the 111 public-domain books this site cuts its practice texts from — 0.15%, or once every 689. On a QWERTY keyboard it is a home key, so the right little finger is already on it and there is no reach to get wrong. In the course it arrives in lesson 4, the A and semicolon keys.

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.