| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | The impact of touch typing on words per day productivty Thread poster: John Moran
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Erik Freitag 
Germany
Local time: 17:14
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
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| Productivity for freelancers | Jan 23, 2014 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
I really hope that "productivity" doesn't become the status symbol (or weapon even) it is in other areas of employment. I thought I'd escaped that when I stopped working in the evil Western capitalist banking behemoth.
Dear Ty,
As much as your sarcastic comment made me laugh, I think you're missing something here.
When you were working as an employee in banking, your productivity was an issue primarily for your boss, while when you're a freelancer, it has a much more direct impact on you. As a freelancer, you can use a higher productivity to earn more in the same time, or to have more free time while earning the same amount of money (or any combination of those two possibilities). A higher productivity is a good thing (as long as you define it as being able to do the same amount of work in less time, with the same quality, and without sacrificing your health or fun at work).
So what you've escaped may be your boss standing behind you and urging you to increase your productivity. Instead, it has become your very own personal interest.
That said, the nice thing about being a freelancer is of course that you can chose to ignore all that
| | | | | Autosuggest dictionaries | Jan 23, 2014 |
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned autosuggest dictionaries in this thread.
I can't touch type (yet), and I don't imagine it would increase my productivity much if I could. What I would gain would be the ability to use my autosuggest dictionary with Trados. I rarely see the suggestions, because I'm looking at the keyboard...
This is the only reason I've started trying to type without looking at the keyboard.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:14
Hebrew to English
| +1 for being a freelancer | Jan 23, 2014 |
efreitag wrote: That said, the nice thing about being a freelancer is of course that you can chose to ignore all that
Definitely one of the big attractions to being (and staying) a freelancer imo 
| | | | Mark Benson (X)
English to Swedish
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| Touch typing is a way of expressing oneself | Jan 23, 2014 |
I have always loved this aspect very much, so I don't know why it slipped my mind to mention it before. But now that the thread seems to be lightening up:
Touch typing, on a proper keyboard, can be taken to very high levels of artistic expression.
Touch typing might have been more important to translators back when it was common to work with a conventional Dictaphone. You would read and do any necessary research beforehand, then you would dictate the translation and ul... See more I have always loved this aspect very much, so I don't know why it slipped my mind to mention it before. But now that the thread seems to be lightening up:
Touch typing, on a proper keyboard, can be taken to very high levels of artistic expression.
Touch typing might have been more important to translators back when it was common to work with a conventional Dictaphone. You would read and do any necessary research beforehand, then you would dictate the translation and ultimately you would play the recording while typing it out.
Working in an environment where this was still the modus operandi, I picked up the beauty of the sound of touch typing. And I do try to make it sound pretty when I type myself too sometimes. But it's hard on most of the most widely commercially available keyboards today. ▲ Collapse
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| A new art-form... | Jan 23, 2014 |
I agree that it is a form of self-expression. I often pretend that I am playing the piano while typing.
| | | | John Moran
Ireland
Local time: 16:14
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Denise Phelps wrote:
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned autosuggest dictionaries in this thread.
I can't touch type (yet), and I don't imagine it would increase my productivity much if I could. What I would gain would be the ability to use my autosuggest dictionary with Trados. I rarely see the suggestions, because I'm looking at the keyboard...
This is the only reason I've started trying to type without looking at the keyboard.
Actually I mentioned Autosuggest/Muses a couple of times but I hadn't thought of that as a reason for touch-typing. It makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 23:14
Member
Chinese to English
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| JaneD
Sweden
Local time: 17:14
Member (2009)
Swedish to English
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At last a zombie game I'd be able to win!
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Freemanson
Local time: 17:14
French to English
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| Purely mathematical approach + non tangible advantages | Feb 23, 2014 |
You could start by doing a purely mathematical analysis:
E.g. On a good day when I'm up to a deadline, I translate over 4,000 words.
A good touch typist can do about 60 words a minute. A very fast touch typist can reach maybe 120 wpm. Let's suppose 50 wp. So the typing part of the work takes up 80 minutes.
Now, time yourself typing. If you find that your speed is 20 wpm. The same 4,000 words would take 200 minutes. So you could potentially save 120 minutes a day. Two ... See more You could start by doing a purely mathematical analysis:
E.g. On a good day when I'm up to a deadline, I translate over 4,000 words.
A good touch typist can do about 60 words a minute. A very fast touch typist can reach maybe 120 wpm. Let's suppose 50 wp. So the typing part of the work takes up 80 minutes.
Now, time yourself typing. If you find that your speed is 20 wpm. The same 4,000 words would take 200 minutes. So you could potentially save 120 minutes a day. Two hours a day, that's a really worthwhile saving. However, that doesn't take into account what your brain is actually doing while you are typing slowly. Are you concentrating on what are the next letters to type, mentally correcting your sentences or are you thinking about how to translate the text.
In reality, things are not that simple. I'm a self-taught touch typist but I haven't bothered to check my speed. It's certainly nowhere near as good as a professional typest and I know keyboard peckers who type faster than me. But I do find it useful to look at the screen rather than my fingers, or carry on typing while I look at my boss (a fast pecker typist) when he walks into my office to give me some more text. Or look at the cieling. It's simply more pleasant.
I did once try speaking into a recording device and then transcribing. That particular experiment lasted less than a day!
Finally, I suspect it's much harder to learn to touch type after you've been two-finger typing for a long time. Typing manuals tell you to NEVER look at your fingers because it will build up bad reflexes. So now you have all those years of reflexes to overcome. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | The impact of touch typing on words per day productivty | Apr 16, 2014 |
Right that! If you do practice daily for your typing and learn the lesson day by day with regularity so obviously you see you have increasing the productivity of words on typing.
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I must say that learning touch-typing was one of the most beneficial things I've ever done. I used SOLO touch typing course and increased my productivity greatly. It can be found at www.solotyping.com
I don't have to look at the keyboard and It doesn't distract me anymore.
| | | | laurgi
Local time: 17:14
German to French
Jenn Mercer wrote:
I can't imagine having a job involving typing all day and not being able to touch type.
+++1!!
I'm able to type without looking at the keybord, with each of my ten fingers on the right key.
I've learned it myself as a student, but really started to use it about 25 years later. It's like cycling: once you learn it...
But: typing without looking at the screen is very demanding to me (almost as demanding as writing in english), and I'm not very fast, and yes, I make mistypings (That's why predictive typing drives me crazy).
We don't have to be as fast as people whose job is to transcribe other people's speech or handwriting. Because we translate and type at once, and translating takes longer anyway.
If you're able to touch type, so you have one less problem to manage, that's all. So you maybe can better manage ergonomy matters, for example..
I could'nt one-finger-type because I absolutely need to have my wrists on the desk when I'm typing. For that reason I have a very flat keyboard with smooth (an quiet!) keys.
Sorry for my laborious english
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Oliver Walter
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:14
German to English
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| That test; learn it! | Jun 5, 2014 |
I've just done that online typing test. lasting one minute, and my speed was 37 wpm, with no errors (though I made a couple of mistakes and then corrected them).
I learned touch typing on a VT 100 terminal connected to a VAX-11/780 computer in the early 1980s. That used an excellent training program called Atype, my memory of which is as follows:
It started with exercises each using just a few of the keys. After you'd lea... See more I've just done that online typing test. lasting one minute, and my speed was 37 wpm, with no errors (though I made a couple of mistakes and then corrected them).
I learned touch typing on a VT 100 terminal connected to a VAX-11/780 computer in the early 1980s. That used an excellent training program called Atype, my memory of which is as follows:
It started with exercises each using just a few of the keys. After you'd learned all the keys, it gave you exercises with complete sentences; if you made frequent errors with a particular letter, it created a special exercise (with real words, IIRC), with many occurrences of that letter.
Not having experienced any translation work without being able to touch type, I would have predicted that a translator needs at least enough familiarity with the keyboard to be able to type most of the text while looking at the screen or a book, not the keyboard. I expect that hunt-and-peck typing with 1 or 2 fingers, even if it achieves more than, say, 20 wpm, must be rather tiring.
BTW, for those interested, touch typing (English, anyway - not sure about other languages) uses 9 fingers, not 10 - it doesn't (or, at least I don't) use the thumb of the left hand.
Oliver ▲ Collapse
| | | | laurgi
Local time: 17:14
German to French
| 9 fingers, of course | Jun 5, 2014 |
BTW, for those interested, touch typing (English, anyway - not sure about other languages) uses 9 fingers, not 10 - it doesn't (or, at least I don't) use the thumb of the left hand.
In french aussi
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 17:14
Spanish to English
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I'm afraid I have to buck the trend here. I have never been able to type professionally and have always muddled along with two fingers, looking at the keyboard and screen at the same time. Later, I began using an early MT program (Systran) and a combination of my dodgy typing and the copy-click-paste System system. Then, after muddling through like this for a few years, a friend/colleague suggested I try Dragon NS. Since then, I use a combination of dictation followed by what Phil seems to cons... See more I'm afraid I have to buck the trend here. I have never been able to type professionally and have always muddled along with two fingers, looking at the keyboard and screen at the same time. Later, I began using an early MT program (Systran) and a combination of my dodgy typing and the copy-click-paste System system. Then, after muddling through like this for a few years, a friend/colleague suggested I try Dragon NS. Since then, I use a combination of dictation followed by what Phil seems to consider anathema (post-editing my own Dragon-spawned efforts), along with my two fingered fudging and copy-click-paste MT.
Funnily enough, I have a reputation with my clients for fast turnaround. I have a colleague who touch types and I doubt his daily output will be much higher than mine, although I may be mistaken, as we've never sat down to work it out.
All in all, I still might make a reasonable living from what I do and keep most of my clients happy most of the time. Go figure.
Hats off to all you touch typers out there, but just remember, there is more than one way to skin a cat. ▲ Collapse
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