Dzongkha Typing Tutor for Bhutanese September 27, 2021

 A fast typing speed for sure saves a lot of time when it comes to working on an assignment which requires typing. But how many of us have worked on improving our typing speed? Have you ever asked yourself the following questions?

“How fast can I type in English?”

“Do I know how to type in Dzongkha?”

“How fast can I type in Dzongkha?”

I got my laptop in the year 2015 and the first thing which I wanted to do in my laptop was to learn to type fast. I had seen my brother type fast in his laptop without looking at the keyboard. Instead he looked at me, spoke to me and typed simultaneously in a show off. But I found the ability to do that so cool. I wanted myself to be able to do that. So when I asked Google about the techniques to increase my typing speed, several typing tutors appeared on my laptop screen. I needed only one. I downloaded one of the typing tutors and started my typing lessons. Initially, I found it uncomfortable to keep my left index finger at “F” and right index finger at “J” as instructed by the typing tutor. I often got the urge to type all the letters on the keyboard using my index and middle finger. However, I controlled my urge and followed the correct way of typing. I played games, practised and appeared test in the typing tutor for one hour every day for a month. As a result I was able to type like my brother without looking at the keyboard.

I did not use the English typing tutor anymore in my laptop. But that did not put an end to my typing journey. When I first saw few of my friends typing Dzongkha words in their laptop with difficulty, it intrigued me. I had the burning desire to learn to type in our language-Dzongkha. I somehow got a Dzongkha Unicode from my friend and installed it. I still remember the time when I pasted Dzongkha letters on my keyboard so that I did not have to search the letters every time I wanted to type the particular letter. How I wished at the time for a Dzongkha typing tutor so that I could type Dzongkha words just like I typed English words in the same pace. I somehow practiced typing Dzongkha words without any typing lessons and managed to memorize the location of the words on my keyboard. The only problem I face right now is typing the “Gogens” because every time I have to type any kind of Gogen I have to look at the typing guide.

But it looks like my problems are going to be solved soon because the Dzongkha Development Commission has come up with a Dzongkha Typing Tutor. DDC has introduced this in the year 2019 but I came across it in the recent days. I have already installed the application in my laptop and even appeared few tests. So for those of us who are interested in learning to type in Dzongkha, the application has got an excellent features. Don’t worry if you are just starting because just like the English Typing Tutors, Dzongkha Typing Tutor has got options ranging from basic to advanced level. Moreover, apart from learning Dzongkha typing, the application offers varieties of topic to learn such as colors, vegetables, human body parts, fruits, animals, stories, proverbs, Lozeys, Tsangmos and songs. There are also games to make the learning enjoyable. DDC has done an excellent job by coming up with such an applications. Congratulations to DDC.

                                            Interface of Dzongkha Typing Tutor

 Speaking of fastness in typing, do you know how typing speed is measured?

Characters Per Minute (CPM) and Words Per Minute (WPM) are the terms used whenever typing speed is concerned. Characters comprises of letters, numbers, punctuations and spaces. A “Word” is made out of five characters. So all the characters typed irrespective of errors present divided by 5 in a minute will give us the raw or gross words per minute. But we cannot take errors while calculating the typing speed, can we? So a Net Words Per Minute method is used to calculate the real typing speed. Net WPM is calculated by subtracting uncorrected errors from the raw WPM in a minute.

Typing Pal categorized typing speed into 6 general categories:

Typer type	CMP	WPM
Average	200 CPM or more	Around 40 WPM
Above average	225 CPM or more	45 WPM or more
Appropriate speed	275 CPM or more	55 WPM or more
Productive speed	325 CPM or more	65 WPM or more
High speed	350 CPM or more	70 WPM or more
Competitive speed	600 CPM or more	120 WPM or more

So where do you fall in the above category when you type in English?

Where do you fall in the above category when you type in Dzongkha?