TIMED PRACTICE · Italiano
Italian typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your Italian typing speed
Italian uses the Latin alphabet you already have. The practice words here add 2 characters beyond a-z — è, ù.
If you already touch type English, most of Italian transfers on the first session. What does not transfer is the 2 characters this bank reaches for beyond a-z — è and ù — and they are not decoration: leave them off and the word is misspelled. The occasional word in this bank needs at least one.
Worth knowing before you start: these 55 words use 21 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.
The test is configurable rather than fixed — 15 seconds to 10 minutes, or a set number of words, or your own pasted text. The speed test and the games draw on one bank of 55 common Italian words — 21 distinct characters in all, averaging 3.6 written units per word. Every run samples it again. The summary separates raw speed from net speed, so you can see exactly what your errors cost you.
The temptation in Italian 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
- 55
- Distinct characters
- 21
- Average word
- 3.6 units
Characters beyond a-z in the Italian practice words
- è1
- ù1
Counted across the 55 practice words. 4% of them need at least one.
il di che e la per un in con del non unaAccents with their own keys, and no dead keys at all
Italian marks stress on the final vowel of a good many words — città, perché, così — and the Italian keyboard gives à, è, é, ì, ò and ù dedicated keys along the right-hand side rather than using dead keys. Typing them is one press.
The trade is that capital accented letters are awkward: the Italian layout historically made È and the rest difficult to produce, which is why Italian text sometimes writes E' with an apostrophe instead. It is a workaround everyone recognises and nobody defends.
Italian also has no k, j, w, x or y in native words. They appear only in loanwords and foreign names, which means a good deal of the keyboard sees very little Italian use.
Questions about typing in Italian
Do I need an Italian keyboard?
No. The characters beyond a-z in these practice words — è and ù — are 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 Italian keyboard layout do these tests use?
Latin QWERTY family, plus the 2 characters beyond a-z that these practice words use. The 55 practice words between them use 21 of those 28, so 7 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 Italian?
55 of the most common words in Italian, drawn at random. They use 21 distinct characters between them and average 3.6 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.
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 an Italian 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.
Is Italian hard to type?
Only slightly, if you already touch type. 4% of the practice words need a character outside a-z, 2 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, 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 Italian: lessons and typing games.
Other languages written in Latin: Javanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Malay, Maltese. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- 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.
- Typing accuracyWhat an accuracy percentage really means, why an error costs more than one keystroke, and how to fix accuracy without simply slowing down forever.
- Keyboard layoutsQWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, AZERTY, QWERTZ and the non-Latin layouts — what each one changes, and whether switching is worth it.