GAME 01
Drift
Clear the sky
Words fall in gently and pick up speed. Type one, press space, watch it burst.
PLAY WITH PURPOSE · 한국어
Korean typing games
Make repetition feel lighter. Three short games, all played in Korean. 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 Korean with games
Korean is written in the Hangul script. The 2-Set Hangul layout maps 31 characters across the keys you already have, so every motion transfers and every letter moves.
A Korean keyboard is a setting, not a purchase. Selecting the 2-Set Hangul layout in your operating system repoints 31 of the keys you already have at Hangul characters; nothing about the hardware changes. The guide below shows both faces of each key at once, the letter printed on the cap and the one it will actually write.
Expect a strange few days in Korean where you are at once a competent typist and a beginner. Everything your hands know still works; everything your memory knows points at the wrong letters. It resolves in days rather than months, provided the practice is frequent rather than long.
Of the 62 characters these 42 words use, one alone accounts for roughly 7%. Frequencies like that are why touch typing can be learned at all — you are not memorising 62 equally important characters, you are automating a handful and filling in the rest over time.
Each game escalates on success rather than on a schedule. Four clean hits and the level rises, permanently for that round, so the difficulty finds you instead of being chosen — a beginner and a fast typist play the same game at genuinely different speeds. The words come from the same bank the speed test samples: 42 common Korean words.
- Writing system
- Hangul
- Keyboard layout
- 2-Set Hangul IME
- Direction
- left to right
- Mapped characters
- 31
- Practice words
- 42
- Distinct characters
- 62
- Average word
- 1.8 units
Characters that come up most in these Korean words
- 다5
- 시4
- 나3
- 것2
- 늘2
- 움2
- 좋2
- 천2
- 간1
- 공1
- 교1
- 구1
Counted across the 42 practice words — the ones worth recognising first.
편안한 손으로 홈 열의 자리를 찾습니다Dubeolsik, and why Hangul suits a keyboard so well
Hangul was designed in the fifteenth century as a featural alphabet — letters whose shapes reflect how they are pronounced — and it turns out to suit a keyboard unusually well. Letters are typed in sequence and the software assembles them into syllable blocks as you go, so you type three keys and watch one character form.
Dubeolsik, the two-set layout these lessons use, is the overwhelming standard: consonants on the left hand, vowels on the right, which produces natural hand alternation because Korean syllables alternate consonant and vowel. It is on every Korean keyboard sold and every phone.
Sebeolsik, the three-set layout, separates initial consonants, vowels and final consonants into three groups. It is more efficient by keystroke count and is used by a small number of committed typists, in much the same relationship to Dubeolsik that Dvorak has to QWERTY.
Questions about typing in Korean
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.
Do I need a Korean keyboard?
No. Switching your operating system to the 2-Set Hangul layout remaps the keyboard you already own; nothing physical changes. Stickers and printed keycaps exist, and they are worth skipping — they reward glancing down, which is the habit this whole exercise is trying to remove.
Which Korean keyboard layout do these games use?
2-Set Hangul IME, with 31 characters mapped across the standard key positions. The 42 practice words between them reach every one of those 31 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 Korean?
42 of the most common words in Korean, drawn at random. They use 62 distinct characters between them and average 1.8 written units each, with the longest running to about 3. 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 Korean hard to type?
Harder to start, not harder to reach. Every motion you already have transfers; what does not is the map, and 31 key positions have to be relearned. With a wide character inventory — 62 distinct characters appear in the practice bank alone, most people are past the worst of it inside two weeks of short daily sessions.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
Neither. There is no paid tier and no required sign-in — the 42 Korean 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 Korean: lessons and the speed test.
Other languages that move the alphabet onto the same keys: Tigrinya, Amharic, Armenian, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Korean: Dubeolsik and the syllable blockKorean letters are typed in order and assembled into blocks as you go: which keys build a syllable, and why Dubeolsik alternates hands by construction.
- 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.