Learning where every key is takes most adults about one to two weeks of daily practice, or roughly 5 to 10 hours in total. Getting back to the speed you had before takes longer: a few weeks if you used to type slowly by looking, and often one to three months if you were already a reasonably quick self-taught typist. Getting well past your old speed is a matter of months. The exact time depends less on talent than on two things: how often you practice, and whether you stop looking at the keys outside practice.
The figures in the first sentence are the ones research supports reasonably well. The later ones are estimates, and we say which below.
What the studies measured
Very few studies follow adults from their first touch-typing lesson to fluent speed, so the evidence comes in pieces.
The clearest piece is a 2003 study from the Technion in Israel. Twenty-two students aged 21 to 28 took a touch-typing course, which took them about 8 hours on average to finish, then spent 6 more hours typing their own homework.
| Point in the study | Touch typing speed (WPM) |
|---|---|
| Before training (without looking) | 8.1 |
| Before training, their usual looking method | 18.4 |
| End of the 8-hour course | 21.1 |
| After 6 more hours of real use | 28.7 |
| Two weeks later | 25.8 |
Two things stand out. First, these students passed their old speed by the end of the course, but their old speed was slow. Second, the biggest jump came from using the skill on real work, not from the course itself.
A second piece comes from a 1978 study of 72 British postal workers who learned a typewriter keyboard for coding postcodes. The group that practiced one hour a day took 34.9 hours on average to learn the whole keyboard; the group doing two 2-hour sessions a day needed 49.7. The material was codes rather than sentences, so the hours don't transfer directly to prose, but the direction is clear: spreading practice across more days gets you there in fewer total hours.
Touch typing timeline: milestones by week
This table assumes 20 to 30 minutes a day, every day, and that you start touch typing everything once you know the letters. The first row is well supported by the studies above. The later rows are our estimates from the same studies and from how typing speed tends to grow with practice; treat them as ranges, not promises.
| When | Milestone | Typical speed without looking |
|---|---|---|
| Days 1 to 7 | Every letter learned, slowly | Under 15 WPM |
| Week 2 | Shift, punctuation, first full tests | About 15 to 25 WPM |
| Weeks 3 to 6 | Typing everything by touch; speed rises fastest here | About 25 to 35 WPM |
| Months 2 to 3 | Back to or past a typical self-taught speed | About 35 to 50 WPM |
| Months 3 to 6 and beyond | Steady gains with targeted practice | 50 WPM and up |
Our two-week beginner's plan covers the first two rows day by day.
Converting hours into days
If you practice 15 minutes a day, the Technion course's 8 hours takes 32 days. At 30 minutes it takes 16 days, and at an hour, 8 days. Two weeks at 20 to 30 minutes a day comes to between 4 hours 40 minutes and 7 hours. That's why "learn touch typing in a week" is possible only for people who can practice an hour or more a day, and even they won't be fast at the end of it.
Why some people take much longer
You keep looking at the keys
This is the main one. The Technion researchers found that success in a touch-typing course doesn't ensure people keep touch typing afterwards, because looking at the keys stays faster for a while and people drift back to it under pressure. Each relapse resets part of your progress. If you've been "learning touch typing" for six months and still look down when busy, you haven't been learning for six months.
Your old method was already fast
The higher your starting speed, the longer it takes your touch speed to catch up. A 20 WPM looker can pass their old speed in a couple of weeks; a 55 WPM self-taught typist may need two or three months. We couldn't find a study that measures this catch-up time for fast self-taught typists, so that figure is our estimate, built from the Technion speeds and the slower gains at higher speeds. Our post on touch typing vs hunt and peck helps you decide whether relearning makes sense at that level.
Practice comes in large, rare blocks
Cramming loses to spacing. In the postal study, the best-spaced group needed about 30% fewer hours than the most crammed group, and was also faster at the end of training.
Practice without a goal
A 2007 study of 60 university students found that taking a typing class did not, on its own, predict speed. The fastest were those who had taken a class and also tried to type faster in everyday use. Practice that aims at something specific, like your slowest keys, beats practice that only repeats. The practice page builds drills from the keys and words you actually miss.
Does the skill fade?
Yes, if you stop. In the postal study, people who didn't type for nine months lost about 30% of their speed, most of it in the first three months. Touch typing that you use every day doesn't fade in the same way, because daily use is practice. Short sessions on the days you don't type much keep it alive; we wrote about keeping a daily habit without burning out.
How to measure your progress
Take three 1-minute tests once a week and keep the middle score, so one bad run doesn't spoil the trend. Track accuracy as well as speed: a rising speed with accuracy under 95% usually means you're rushing. Once you're steady around 40 WPM, the 40 to 80 WPM practice plan takes over.
Frequently asked questions
Can you learn touch typing in 7 days?
You can learn where every letter is in 7 days with an hour or so of daily practice. You won't be as fast as your old method yet; that takes weeks of daily use.
How many hours does it take to learn touch typing?
In the Technion study, adults needed about 8 hours to finish a touch-typing course, and typed at about 21 WPM without looking at the end. Expect another several hours of real use before it feels natural.
How long does it take to type 60 WPM with touch typing?
For most adults starting from scratch, many months of regular practice. Some get there sooner, especially those who already typed quickly, but there isn't good study data on the exact time.
At what age should kids learn touch typing?
We don't give an age here because we haven't found an education or health authority that sets one. Our separate post on typing for kids covers the practical side.
Sources
- Yechiam, Erev, Yehene and Gopher (2003), Melioration and the Transition from Touch-Typing Training to Everyday Use, Human Factors
- Baddeley and Longman (1978), The Influence of Length and Frequency of Training Session on the Rate of Learning to Type, Ergonomics
- Keith and Ericsson (2007), A Deliberate Practice Account of Typing Proficiency in Everyday Typists (preprint)