TIMED PRACTICE · Deutsch
German typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your German typing speed
German uses the Latin alphabet you already have. The practice words here add 1 character beyond a-z — ü.
German sits on the same QWERTY keys as English, and these practice words then ask for 1 more character: ü. 3% of the practice words here need one — the occasional word — which is often enough that reaching for it should be a trained motion rather than a hunt through a character map.
Pick a duration or a word count, turn punctuation and digits on if you want them, and type 60 common German words in whatever order the shuffle produces. Because the words come fresh each run there is nothing to learn by repetition — a second attempt measures you, not your memory. Afterwards: net WPM, accuracy, a consistency figure and the keys you missed most.
German's 60-word bank draws on 23 characters, and they are wildly unequal in how often they turn up — the commonest is about 13% of all letters typed, the rarest a fraction of one. The lessons follow that gradient deliberately, which is why the home row comes first and the awkward reaches come last.
The temptation in German is to skip the accents while drilling and add them later. It does not work — the accent is part of the motion, and a hand that has practised the word without it has practised a different word. Drill them from the start, awkward as the first week is.
- Writing system
- Latin
- Keyboard layout
- Latin QWERTY family
- Direction
- left to right
- Practice words
- 60
- Distinct characters
- 23
- Average word
- 3.7 units
Characters beyond a-z in the German practice words
- ü2
Counted across the 60 practice words. 3% of them need at least one.
der die und in den von zu das mit sich des aufQWERTZ, ß, and a capital letter that arrived in 2017
German uses QWERTZ, which swaps Y and Z relative to QWERTY — Z is common in German and Y is rare, so it moves to the stronger hand — and adds ä, ö, ü and ß as dedicated keys to the right of the letter block.
ß, the sharp s, is the interesting one. For most of its history it had no capital form: a word set in capitals used SS instead. A capital ẞ was added to Unicode in 2008 and formally accepted into German orthography in 2017, and it is still not on most keyboards.
Switzerland uses a different QWERTZ again: the Swiss layout has no ß at all and handles German, French and Italian accents from one arrangement, since all three are national languages. A German keyboard and a Swiss one are not interchangeable.
Questions about typing in German
Do I need a German keyboard?
No. The character beyond a-z in these practice words — ü — is reachable on the keyboard you already own once the right layout is selected in your operating system's settings. Some layouts give them their own keys, others build them from a modifier; either way the hardware is unchanged.
Which German keyboard layout do these tests use?
Latin QWERTY family, plus the 1 character beyond a-z that these practice words use. The 60 practice words between them use 23 of those 27, 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.
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 German 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.
Why does my score change so much between attempts?
Partly the draw and partly you. No two runs of the German typing test use the same words — they are sampled fresh from the bank each time, so one attempt can hand you a friendlier set than the next — and concentration varies more than most people credit. Take three and look at the middle one rather than the best.
What will I actually be typing in German?
60 of the most common words in German, drawn at random. They use 23 distinct characters between them and average 3.7 written units each, with the longest running to about 7. 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 German hard to type?
Only slightly, if you already touch type. 3% of the practice words need a character outside a-z, one such character appears 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, 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 German: lessons and typing games.
Other languages written in Latin: Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- How hard is each script to type? Every keyboard here, measuredThirty-five keyboards, four things counted about each: how many keys they define, how much of the language they reach, and how large its character set is.
- Do typing games help, and what do they measure?Games are a good diagnostic and a poor teacher. What pressure exposes that a calm test does not, and the limit of playing your way to a faster speed.
- Typing accented letters and symbolsDead keys, AltGr, Option, compose and the Unicode escape hatch: the five ways to type é, ñ, ü or ß, and which one is actually worth learning.