BÉPO typing test

What BÉPO is

BÉPO is a French layout built on the ideas behind Dvorak: count how often each letter appears in real French text, then put the most frequent ones under your resting fingers. The home row holds A, U, I and E under the left hand and T, S, R and N under the right. According to the French Wikipedia article on the layout, about two-thirds of French typing happens on that row, against a little over 20% on AZERTY.

The project grew out of a community effort and froze its layout in August 2008. It treats French typography as a first-class job: the French guillemets « and » have their own keys, and the non-breaking space French typography uses is on Shift + Space.

One thing BÉPO doesn't change from AZERTY is the digits. The top row's unshifted level types symbols and punctuation, and you press Shift for each digit. The project's design goal was that ordinary French text should never need the top row at all.

Adoption has stayed small. The English Wikipedia article notes that use of BÉPO, like the proposed new AZERTY, remained marginal after the standard came out. That's worth knowing if you often type on shared or work computers: you'll either carry your own keyboard setup or switch back to AZERTY on those machines.

Which BÉPO the test emulates

The emulation follows BÉPO 1.0, the community version. In April 2019, AFNOR published the voluntary standard NF Z71-300, which defines a BÉPO layout alongside an improved AZERTY. The standardised BÉPO is based on the later 1.1 version, and it differs from the 1.0 layout emulated here in a few symbol positions. The standard as a whole also adds better support for other European and regional languages and for scientific symbols.

Emulation stays on for this page and reads physical key positions, so even if you've installed the AFNOR version on your computer, the test types BÉPO 1.0 and a few symbols may not be where your fingers expect. Plain word tests are where that matters least.

Emulation in practice

The test reads which physical key you pressed and replaces it with the BÉPO character for that position. It doesn't matter whether your keycaps say AZERTY or QWERTY, and the mapping happens only inside the typing area.

Because it reads positions rather than the letters your system produces, it gives the same result if your system already types BÉPO; only a keyboard that remaps keys in its own firmware would be mapped twice. The emulation has no dead keys, so the ^ key types a plain ^: words with â, î, ô, û or ë need lazy mode here.

BÉPO moves almost every key, so expect the first sessions to be slow. The keymap under the text shows the next key's BÉPO legend; keep it visible until you stop looking for it.

Why BÉPO suits French: the numbers from our word list

We counted our French 1,000-word list. 154 of the 1,000 words contain an accented letter or œ, and accented letters make up 3.1% of every letter you type. The biggest single one is é at 1.76% of letters, ahead of è at 0.44% and ê at 0.28%. BÉPO was designed so that French text never needs the top row, which means é and the other everyday accents sit in the letter block instead of on the number row as on AZERTY.

The list comes from subtitles, so the words are the ones people say: "de", "je", "est", "pas", "que". That's a fair test of a layout designed around everyday French.

A first month on BÉPO

Week 1: home row only. A U I E and T S R N give you a surprising number of short French words (une, est, rien, tes, nus, sert, rester). Choose BÉPO under layout emulation in settings so the other test pages use it too, then run 10-word tests with accuracy as your only goal.

Week 2: add the top letter row, then the bottom one. Switch to 25-word tests.

Weeks 3 and 4: switch to 1-minute tests, a few a day, and start keeping a median of three. After every run, look at the most-missed keys on the results screen; practice builds drills around the keys you miss.

Don't type AZERTY and BÉPO in alternate hours during that first month if you can avoid it. Mixing layouts early keeps both slow.

Can you type English on BÉPO?

This page always uses French words, but with BÉPO chosen under layout emulation in settings you can take any English test, and the layout handles it fine. It was tuned for French letter frequencies, though, so letters that are rare in French but common in English can end up in less comfortable spots than on layouts designed for English, such as Dvorak or Colemak. The Dvorak typing test is the place to compare.