TIMED PRACTICE · 한국어
Korean typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your Korean typing speed
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.
Everyone learning Korean passes through the same stage: typing by translation. You know the Hangul letter you want, you think of the Latin key it lives on, and then you press it — three steps where fluent typing has one. The middle step is what practice removes, and it goes faster if you refuse to look at the keyboard while it is going.
A frequency count of the bank explains why early progress feels fast and later progress does not. The top ten characters cover about 32% of everything these Korean words contain; past that you are learning characters that turn up once in a paragraph, which takes as long to automate and pays back far less often.
Two modes, timed and word-count, plus the option to paste your own text. The words come at random from 42 common Korean words. What you get back is not just a number: net and raw WPM, accuracy, consistency across the run, and the keys you got wrong most often.
The hard part of Korean is not the hands, it is the map. Most people find the motions transfer immediately and the recall does not: you know the key you want and cannot say where it is. That gap closes with repetition, and closes faster if you resist looking.
- 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 a Korean keyboard?
No, and this is the part people most often get wrong. A Korean keyboard is a software setting: add the 2-Set Hangul layout in your operating system's keyboard settings and the keys under your fingers begin producing Hangul characters. Keycaps with Hangul letters printed on them are a convenience for people who look down, and if you are learning to touch type you are learning not to.
Which Korean keyboard layout do these tests 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.
Why is my Korean speed lower than my English speed?
Because you are doing two things at once: finding the key and recalling what it writes. Speed in a script you have typed for years is one motion; speed in a new one is a lookup followed by a motion. The lookup is what disappears with practice, and when it does the gap closes faster than most people expect.
Is the Korean typing test the same every time?
No. Words are drawn at random from the Korean 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.
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.
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 Korean: lessons and typing games.
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.