TIMED PRACTICE · Malti
Maltese typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your Maltese typing speed
Maltese uses the Latin alphabet you already have. The practice words here add 3 characters beyond a-z — ħ, ż, ġ.
Not all keys are worth the same. Ten characters carry around 69% of everything you will type in these Maltese drills, and the remaining 16 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.
If you already touch type English, most of Maltese transfers on the first session. What does not transfer is the 3 characters this bank reaches for beyond a-z — ħ, ż and ġ — and they are not decoration: leave them off and the word is misspelled. A steady minority in this bank needs at least one.
Pick a duration or a word count, turn punctuation and digits on if you want them, and type 91 common Maltese 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.
Most people arrive at Maltese able to type and unable to type Maltese, which is a narrower problem than it feels. The letter keys are already done. What is left is a small number of positions, and the willingness to reach for them rather than paste them in.
- Writing system
- Latin
- Keyboard layout
- Latin QWERTY family
- Direction
- left to right
- Practice words
- 91
- Distinct characters
- 26
- Average word
- 4.5 units
Characters beyond a-z in the Maltese practice words
- ħ23
- ż4
- ġ3
Counted across the 91 practice words. 31% of them need at least one.
u il ta li fi ma biex mhux ħafna tajjeb kbir żgħirA Semitic language in the Latin alphabet
Maltese is descended from Arabic and is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet — and the only one that is an official language of the European Union. Its orthography was standardised in 1924.
Four letters are particular to it: ċ, ġ, ħ and ż, plus the digraph għ, which is historically a pharyngeal consonant and is now mostly silent while still affecting the vowels around it. ħ is a letter in its own right, not an h with a line through it.
The Maltese keyboard is a UK QWERTY layout with those four letters added. Because the language draws vocabulary from Arabic, Italian and English in roughly equal measure, a Maltese typist switches between all three more often than most.
Questions about typing in Maltese
Do I need a Maltese keyboard?
No. Your operating system already offers a layout that produces ħ, ż and ġ from the keys you have — through a dead key on some, a modifier such as right Alt on others. Which one depends on the language and on the layout you select; the hardware does not change either way.
Which Maltese keyboard layout do these tests use?
Latin QWERTY family, plus the 3 characters beyond a-z that these practice words use. The 91 practice words between them use 26 of those 29, so 3 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.
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 Maltese 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 Maltese typing test the same every time?
No. Words are drawn at random from the Maltese 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 will I actually be typing in Maltese?
91 of the most common words in Maltese, drawn at random. They use 26 distinct characters between them and average 4.5 written units each, with the longest running to about 10. 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 Maltese hard to type?
Only slightly, if you already touch type. 31% of the practice words need a character outside a-z, 3 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?
Neither. There is no paid tier and no required sign-in — the 91 Maltese 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 Maltese: lessons and typing games.
Other languages written in Latin: Māori, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Keyboard shortcuts worth learningThe text-editing shortcuts almost nobody learns are the ones that pay. What they are on each platform, how to learn them, and why they belong to typing.
- The home rowASDF and JKL; are where every touch typist's hands return. What the home row is, why the bumps are there, and how to drill it properly.
- 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.