There are tons of resources to learn Russian, but as soon as you get serious about it, you need to learn how to type with a Russian keyboard.
For the last two weeks, I have been copy/pasting Russian words into Google Translate and occasionally completing words with the Russian-Phonetics
virtual keyboard, but increasingly I have realized it was time-consuming to figure out the "phonetic equivalent" and keyboard location for characters like
ч, я or
щ.
So, yesterday I decided to go on a search for free typing tutor,
клавиатурный тренажер, from the word
клавиатура, keyboard.
It wasn't long before I found
Все10 (
www.vse10.ru) on Google.
Bce10 is an online typing tutor with a great design and completely
бесплатно, free. The only little downside is that it's entirely in Russian, but that should not stop you: the big yellow button
попробуй прямо сейчас (try it now) on the homepage allows you to get a feel for what's ahead. Try it for fun (remember to switch to a regular virtual Russian keyboard) or go straight to the registration/login page
войти (login).
Registration
There, you get offered to login or register yourself,
зарегистроваться. On the form you will need to provide the usual Name, Email address and enter your password (twice) with no less than 4 characters :
- Ваше имя
- Адрес эл. почты
- Пароль (не менее 4-х символов)
- Пароль еще раз
That's it ! You can start using it immediately. An email will be sent to your address but it's not "click again" to finalize your registration.
How to use it
A large button "начать упражнение", start exercise, clearly shows the way. Switch to the Russian keyboard, and start typing the letter that appear in the top section. The keyboard on the screen shows the location of each character and the ideal position of the hands.
After each exercise you get an evaluation of your speed, number of error and rhythm.
знак : character
вы набрали : you typed
со скоростью : at (speed of)
процент ошибок : percentage of errors
ритмичность : rhythmicity
As with other typing tutor, the difficulty is progressive. You can only move to the next level, следующее, if you've met the expected average (средний). If you fail, the only visible option will be go (try) again : пройти заново.
When you register, your progress is recorded and you can start again at anytime from the last level you reached. You can view your stats from моя страница, My Page, Статистика.
I played with this for an hour and I made amazing progress, so I highly recommend you give it a try.
Happy typing !
