Српски · Beginner 1(a)
Learn to type in Serbian
Home row anchors
Settle both hands on the home row: A S D F for the left, J K L ; for the right.
Physical key labels appear above. Српски layout labels appear below. These three rows produce 25 of the 27 characters the practice words here use; the rest are reached with a modifier or a dead key.
Learning to type in Serbian
Serbian is written in the Cyrillic script. The Serbian Cyrillic layout maps 31 characters across the keys you already have, so every motion transfers and every letter moves.
Serbian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, so a Serbian Cyrillic keyboard puts a different letter under every finger you already know. 31 keys are remapped, and that is the entire difficulty: the motions are the ones you have, aimed at different letters.
The course is deliberately narrow at the beginning: a handful of keys repeated until they are automatic, before anything is added. Nine stages later it has worked across the board, and 77 common Serbian words are waiting in the speed test for when the positions stop needing thought. Skipping ahead is possible and usually a mistake, because the later stages assume the earlier ones are already automatic.
Serbian's 77-word bank draws on 27 characters, and they are wildly unequal in how often they turn up — the commonest is about 14% of all letters typed, the rarest a fraction of one. The lessons follow that gradient deliberately, which is why the home row comes first and the awkward reaches come last.
The hard part of Serbian 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
- Cyrillic
- Keyboard layout
- Serbian Cyrillic
- Direction
- left to right
- Mapped characters
- 31
- Practice words
- 77
- Distinct characters
- 27
- Average word
- 4 units
Characters you will press most in these Serbian words
- а42
- о34
- е28
- и21
- д17
- т16
- в15
- р15
- к14
- с13
- л10
- м10
Counted across the 77 practice words — the characters worth getting right first.
мирне руке налазе основни ред без гледањаOne language, two alphabets
Serbian is written in both Cyrillic and Latin, officially and routinely, and educated speakers read both without effort. Signs, newspapers and websites switch between them freely.
The two are in strict one-to-one correspondence — every Cyrillic letter has exactly one Latin equivalent and the other way round — which means text can be converted mechanically without loss. Five Latin equivalents are digraphs: lj, nj, dž for љ, њ, џ, and so on.
For a typist this means two layouts, both worth having. These lessons use the Serbian Cyrillic layout; the Latin one is a QWERTZ arrangement with č, ć, š, ž and đ, and it is nearly identical to the Croatian and Bosnian layouts.
Questions about typing in Serbian
Do I need a Serbian keyboard?
No, and this is the part people most often get wrong. A Serbian keyboard is a software setting: add the Serbian Cyrillic layout in your operating system's keyboard settings and the keys under your fingers begin producing Cyrillic characters. Keycaps with Cyrillic 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 Serbian keyboard layout do these lessons use?
Serbian Cyrillic, with 31 characters mapped across the standard key positions. The 77 practice words between them use 27 of those 31, so 4 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 physical key and the character it produces together, so you are never reading a layout diagram in one window while typing in another.
Should I look at the keyboard while I learn?
No, and this is the one piece of advice worth being stubborn about. A glance down is not just a pause — it rehearses the habit of reading the keys instead of remembering them, which is precisely the habit the course exists to replace. Covering your hands for the first fortnight is unpleasant and works.
How often should I practise Serbian?
Briefly and often. What you are building is recall, and recall decays between sessions, so ten minutes on most days will take you considerably further than an hour once a week. Stop while it is still going well — practising past the point of fatigue rehearses sloppy motion.
Where should I start with Serbian?
At the beginning of the beginner course, even if you already touch type in another language. The nine stages start on the home row and add keys outward, and the early ones are short. If Serbian is a script you have never typed, the first stage is doing more work than it looks like — it is building the map, not the speed.
What will I actually be typing in Serbian?
Sequences of the keys each stage has introduced — single letters first, then pairs, then short chunks — in Cyrillic as the Serbian Cyrillic layout produces it, rather than transliterated into Latin letters. The point of the course is the position of a key rather than the vocabulary. The 77 common Serbian words in the practice bank are what the speed test samples and what the games pull from, once the positions stop needing thought.
Is Serbian 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 fairly compact inventory of 27 characters across the practice bank, most people are past the worst of it inside two weeks of short daily sessions.
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 Serbian: the speed test and typing games.
Other languages written in Cyrillic: Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Kazakh, Macedonian, Mongolian. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Cyrillic: one script, eight keyboardsWhy the standard Russian layout ignores the letters on your keycaps, when a phonetic layout is defensible, and how far the eight Cyrillic layouts differ.
- 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.
- The bottom rowZ X C V B N M sit below home and are the least practised keys on the board. Which finger takes which, and why C and B cause trouble.