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Where Do Your Fingers Go?

One minute, two keys, no typing test. Get your hands in the right place once and every lesson after this one gets easier.

  1. Find F with your left index finger It has a small raised bump. Feel for it — do not look down.
  2. Find J with your right index finger The matching bump. Your two index fingers are now anchored.
  3. Rest the rest: A S D F — J K L ; Press each one in turn. This row is home — fingers always come back here.

Press F now.

Why the home row matters more than speed

Touch typing works because every finger owns a small group of keys and always returns to the same resting place. That resting place is the home row — A S D F for the left hand, J K L ; for the right — and the two bumps on F and J are how you find it without looking. Once your hands return there automatically, your fingers stop hunting and speed follows on its own.

This is the one habit that is genuinely hard to fix later. Two-finger typists can reach perhaps 30 words per minute and then stop, because the technique itself is the ceiling. Ten minutes spent here is worth more than an hour of practice with your hands in the wrong place.

How do I know my hands are in the right place without looking?

Feel for the two small raised bumps on the F and J keys. Every keyboard has them, and they exist for exactly this reason. Rest your left index finger on F and your right index finger on J, let the other fingers fall onto the keys beside them, and both thumbs sit on the space bar.

Do I really have to learn touch typing this way?

You do not have to, but it is the difference between typing at 25 words per minute and typing at 60. Every finger owns a small group of keys and returns to the home row after each press. Learning that from the first lesson is far easier than unlearning two-finger typing later.

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