TIMED PRACTICE · Français
French typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your French typing speed
French uses the Latin alphabet you already have. The practice words here add 4 characters beyond a-z — ê, é, è, ù.
The speed test and the games draw on one bank of 64 common French words — 26 distinct characters in all, averaging 3.6 written units per word. A test can run for a fixed duration or a fixed number of words, with punctuation and numbers optional. Words are drawn at random each time, so no two runs are the same and there is nothing to memorise. The result reports net speed, accuracy, how steady you were across the run, and the five keys you got wrong most often.
French (Français) is a Latin-script language with a tail. Twenty-six keys carry most of it, and then 8% of the practice words here reach past them for one of the 4 characters outside a-z: ê, é, è and ù. Where those live depends on the layout you have selected; the guide shows a Latin QWERTY family arrangement.
Speed in French comes from prediction more than from finger speed: a familiar word is one motion, an unfamiliar one is a letter at a time. That is why drilling common words works — you are not training keys so much as the shapes the language keeps repeating.
Worth knowing before you start: these 64 words use 26 distinct characters, and the effort is not spread evenly across them. Ten of them do roughly 78% of the work, so the first week of practice buys far more than the tenth will. That is the normal shape of it, not a sign of a plateau.
- Writing system
- Latin
- Keyboard layout
- Latin QWERTY family
- Direction
- left to right
- Practice words
- 64
- Distinct characters
- 26
- Average word
- 3.6 units
Characters beyond a-z in the French practice words
- ê2
- é1
- è1
- ù1
Counted across the 64 practice words. 8% of them need at least one.
le la de et les des en un une du que quiAZERTY, and the standard that tried to fix it
AZERTY is the French and Belgian layout, and it is genuinely awkward in ways French typists complain about constantly. Digits require the shift key, so typing a number is a two-key operation. Several characters French needs — ù, é, è, à, ç — have their own keys, while others, notably capital accented letters and the œ ligature, were historically difficult or impossible to type at all.
In 2019 AFNOR, the French standards body, published a revised AZERTY addressing most of this, alongside a standardised version of BÉPO — an ergonomic layout designed for French in the way Dvorak was designed for English. Adoption of both has been slow, which will surprise nobody.
The Belgian AZERTY differs from the French one in several positions, so the two are not interchangeable either. Canadian French uses a different arrangement again.
Questions about typing in French
Do I need a French keyboard?
No, though you do need the right layout selected. 4 characters in the practice words here sit outside a-z, and they come up in 8% of those words — often enough that copying them from a character map will hold you back, and rare enough that people try to.
What is the difference between raw and net WPM?
Raw counts everything you typed; net subtracts what you got wrong and left wrong. A large gap between the two is the most useful signal on the results screen — it means the speed is there and the accuracy is not, which is a different problem from simply being slow, and a faster one to fix.
Does accuracy matter more than speed?
For a score, they are the same measurement — net WPM already penalises errors. For improving, accuracy matters more, because the fastest route to a higher number is almost always removing mistakes rather than moving your fingers faster.
How long should a French typing test be?
Longer than you would like. A 15-second test measures your sprint and flatters you; over two minutes your sustainable speed shows up, along with the fact that concentration runs out. If you want one number that describes you rather than your best moment, take the longer one.
Which French keyboard layout do these tests use?
Latin QWERTY family, plus the 4 characters beyond a-z that these practice words use. The 64 practice words between them use 26 of those 30, so 4 characters never come up in the practice text — these are the commonest words rather than an even sweep of the layout. The keyboard guide below the typing area shows the keys you actually press, which for an input method are the Latin ones already printed on them.
What will I actually be typing in French?
64 of the most common words in French, drawn at random. They use 26 distinct characters between them and average 3.6 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.
Is French hard to type?
Only slightly, if you already touch type. 8% of the practice words need a character outside a-z, 4 such characters appear in total, and the rest is a keyboard you already know. The difficulty is concentrated in a handful of positions rather than spread across the layout.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
No account, no payment, no trial. Progress is stored in this browser, which is enough until you want it on a second device or on a leaderboard — that is the only thing an account buys, and it is optional.
Also in French: lessons and typing games.
Other languages written in Latin: German, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- How long a typing test should beFifteen seconds, one minute and five minutes measure three different things. Which length to use, and why comparing results across them is meaningless.
- Keyboard shortcuts worth learningThe text-editing shortcuts almost nobody learns are the ones that pay. What they are on each platform, how to learn them, and why they belong to typing.
- The home rowASDF and JKL; are where every touch typist's hands return. What the home row is, why the bumps are there, and how to drill it properly.