GAME 01
Drift
Clear the sky
Words fall in gently and pick up speed. Type one, press space, watch it burst.
PLAY WITH PURPOSE · հայերեն
Armenian typing games
Make repetition feel lighter. Three short games, all played in Armenian. Every 4 clean hits raises the level, and it never drops back. Scores are kept in this browser; signed in, a new personal best also goes to the leaderboard.
GAME 02
Orbit
Hold the ring
Characters circle the core. Strike each one before its arc runs out.
GAME 03
Signal
Beat the pulse
One word, one shrinking window. Keep the chain alive as the pulse quickens.
Practising Armenian with games
Armenian is written in its own script. The Armenian QWERTY layout maps 28 characters across the keys you already have, so every motion transfers and every letter moves.
հայերեն is written in the Armenian script, and the practice words here use 35 distinct characters of it. None of them are where your hands expect. That is less daunting than it sounds — you are not relearning to type, you are relearning 28 key positions, and the rhythm underneath is already yours.
The three games differ in what they pressure. One drops words you must finish before they land, one puts characters on a moving orbit, and one hands you a clock that shrinks every time you succeed. All three run on 44 common Armenian words, and all three level up every four clean hits and never level down.
Of the 35 characters these 44 words use, one alone accounts for roughly 19%. Frequencies like that are why touch typing can be learned at all — you are not memorising 35 equally important characters, you are automating a handful and filling in the rest over time.
The hard part of Armenian is not the hands, it is the map. Most people find the motions transfer immediately and the recall does not: you know the key you want and cannot say where it is. That gap closes with repetition, and closes faster if you resist looking.
- Writing system
- Armenian
- Keyboard layout
- Armenian QWERTY
- Direction
- left to right
- Mapped characters
- 28
- Practice words
- 44
- Distinct characters
- 35
- Average word
- 3.9 units
Characters you will press most in these Armenian words
- ա33
- ր16
- ն14
- ե10
- կ10
- ո9
- ի7
- ղ6
- մ6
- տ6
- հ5
- ք5
Counted across the 44 practice words — the characters worth getting right first.
հանգիստ ձեռքերը գլխավոր շարքը հեշտությամբ են գտնումThirty-nine letters and two orthographies
The Armenian alphabet was created around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots and has 39 letters in its modern form. It is written left to right and, like Georgian, is unrelated to any neighbouring script.
Armenian is split between two standard forms: Eastern Armenian, used in Armenia and Iran, and Western Armenian, used across most of the diaspora. They differ in pronunciation and grammar, and Western Armenian retains the classical orthography while Eastern adopted a reformed spelling in the Soviet period. The letters are the same; some of the spellings are not.
Armenian punctuation is its own system: a question is marked with a symbol placed over the stressed vowel of the questioned word rather than at the end of the sentence, and the full stop is a colon-like mark.
Questions about typing in Armenian
Do I need an Armenian keyboard?
No, and this is the part people most often get wrong. An Armenian keyboard is a software setting: add the Armenian QWERTY layout in your operating system's keyboard settings and the keys under your fingers begin producing Armenian characters. Keycaps with Armenian letters printed on them are a convenience for people who look down, and if you are learning to touch type you are learning not to.
Which Armenian keyboard layout do these games use?
Armenian QWERTY, with 28 characters mapped across the standard key positions. The 44 practice words between them reach every one of those 28 characters rather than a comfortable corner of the layout. The keyboard guide below the typing area shows the physical key and the character it produces together, so you are never reading a layout diagram in one window while typing in another.
What will I actually be typing in Armenian?
44 of the most common words in Armenian, drawn at random. They use 35 distinct characters between them and average 3.9 written units each, with the longest running to about 8. Short, frequent words are used on purpose: they are the ones your hands will meet most often outside a lesson, so the practice transfers.
Do I need to be fast to play?
No. All three start slow and speed up only as you succeed: the level rises every four clean hits and never drops back, so a game meets you where you are and ends when you stop keeping up. What a round tells you is where that point is today, which is a more useful thing to know than a score.
Are game scores saved?
On this device, always. On the leaderboard, only if you have signed in and chosen a name — and a leaderboard name is never your email address.
Which game should I start with?
Whichever appeals — they pressure different things. Falling words reward finishing what you started; the orbit rewards picking a target and committing; the shrinking timer rewards not hesitating. If you are trying to fix hesitation specifically, the third one is the unpleasant and effective choice.
Is Armenian hard to type?
Harder to start, not harder to reach. Every motion you already have transfers; what does not is the map, and 28 key positions have to be relearned. With a fairly compact inventory of 35 characters across the practice bank, most people are past the worst of it inside two weeks of short daily sessions.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
No, and it is free either way. Every lesson, drill, test and game works signed out, with your progress kept in this browser. An account adds three things only: your progress and settings follow you to another device, your streak survives clearing your browser data, and you can appear on the leaderboards under a name you choose.
Also in Armenian: lessons and the speed test.
Other languages that move the alphabet onto the same keys: Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Tigrinya, Amharic. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Georgian and Armenian: two alphabets you can nearly guessTwo neighbouring scripts, each unrelated to anything around it, and two keyboards arranged by sound. How far that gets you, measured key by key.
- Adding a keyboard layoutThe step before any of this works: turning on the layout in your operating system, switching to it, and what to do about the wrong letters on your keycaps.
- What touch typing isTouch typing means typing without looking, using all ten fingers from a fixed home position. What it is, why it works, and what it is not.