TIMED PRACTICE · 日本語
Japanese typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your Japanese typing speed
Japanese is not typed one key per character: you compose the sound of a word using Romaji IME and choose the written form you meant.
Speed in Japanese is two skills wearing one coat. The first is keystrokes — Romaji IME is typed on the Latin keys you already have. The second is selection: reading a candidate list and committing the right entry without breaking rhythm. The second is where the time actually goes, and it is the one that keeps improving long after the first has plateaued.
Do not judge your Japanese by WPM alone for the first few weeks. The number is held down by candidate selection, which is a reading skill, and reading speed improves on its own schedule. The keystrokes are already yours.
Not all keys are worth the same. Ten characters carry around 39% of everything you will type in these Japanese drills, and the remaining 41 share what is left. That is why the course introduces its material a little at a time rather than all at once: the early characters do a disproportionate amount of the work.
The speed test and the games draw on one bank of 43 common Japanese words — 51 distinct characters in all, averaging 2.5 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.
- Writing system
- Han
- Keyboard layout
- Romaji IME
- Direction
- left to right
- Practice words
- 43
- Distinct characters
- 51
- Average word
- 2.5 units
- Input method
- Candidate selection
Characters that come up most in these Japanese words
- き7
- か5
- し5
- と5
- う4
- こ4
- あ3
- い3
- が3
- た3
- ち3
- な3
Counted across the 43 practice words — the ones worth recognising first.
手をホームポジションに置いて練習しますRomaji or kana — two ways to reach the same text
Japanese mixes three scripts in ordinary writing: hiragana, katakana and kanji. All three are produced through an input method, and there are two established ways to drive it.
Romaji input, which these lessons use, means typing the sound in Latin letters — "ka" produces か — and then converting to kanji where you want it. It is what most learners and a large share of native speakers use, and it requires no new keyboard.
Kana input means typing the kana directly, using a layout that puts all 50-odd syllables across the keyboard. It takes fewer keystrokes per character and takes considerably longer to learn, which is roughly the trade every direct-input method makes.
In both cases the interesting part is the conversion. You type a phrase, press space, and the software offers ways to write it; choosing correctly and quickly is most of what Japanese typing speed actually measures, and it improves with reading rather than with drills.
Questions about typing in Japanese
Do I need a Japanese keyboard?
No, and nothing needs buying. Romaji IME is a setting in your operating system's language preferences. Once it is on, the keys you already have produce Japanese through the candidate list; without it, they produce Latin letters.
How is typing speed measured here?
In words per minute, where a "word" is a fixed five characters rather than an actual word. That convention is what makes a WPM figure comparable between languages whose real words are very different lengths. The number reported is net WPM: uncorrected mistakes are subtracted, so it reflects text you actually produced correctly.
Why is my Japanese speed lower than my English speed?
Not because of the keys — those are the Latin ones you already use. The difference is the step after them: you type a sound, read what the input method offers, and commit the right one. That is reading rather than typing, and it improves with the language rather than with your hands.
Is the Japanese typing test the same every time?
No. Words are drawn at random from the Japanese bank on every run, so there is nothing to memorise and a second attempt is a fresh test rather than a rehearsal. You can fix the duration or the word count, turn punctuation and numbers on, or paste your own text.
Which Japanese keyboard layout do these tests use?
Romaji IME. The 43 practice words between them use 51 distinct characters. 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 Japanese?
43 of the most common words in Japanese, drawn at random. They use 51 distinct characters between them and average 2.5 written units each, with the longest running to about 4. 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 Japanese hard to type?
Not in the way you are probably expecting. The keystrokes are Latin and already familiar; what is hard is the selection step, and that is a reading skill rather than a typing one. Expect your Japanese speed to be governed by how well you read Japanese, with a wide character inventory — 51 distinct characters appear in the practice bank alone.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
Neither. There is no paid tier and no required sign-in — the 43 Japanese practice words, the speed test and all three games are the whole product, available immediately. Signing in is worth it only if you practise on more than one device.
Also in Japanese: lessons and typing games.
Other languages written in Han: Mandarin Chinese.
More languages on Typelesson: Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Japanese: romaji, kana and the conversion stepJapanese has no keyboard layout of its own. What you press to produce kana, why the conversion step is the real skill, and how the two input modes differ.
- Typing in a second scriptIf you already touch type, your hands transfer completely and your recall does not. What that gap feels like, why it closes, and how to shorten it.
- Keyboard layoutsQWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, AZERTY, QWERTZ and the non-Latin layouts — what each one changes, and whether switching is worth it.