Español

Spanish Typing Test

The test above runs on the Spanish ISO layout, with ñ, the dead-key accents and the inverted marks in their real positions. Your score counts the keys you actually pressed to get there.

What the Spanish keyboard changes

A Spanish ISO board carries one more key than a US board. Spanish uses several keys and key combinations that differ from what a US keyboard typist is used to.

  • ñ has a key of its own, right of the L, where a US board keeps the semicolon. It sits under your right little finger on the home row, and you meet it in año, español, mañana and niño.
  • Accents run through a dead key. For á you press the accent key first, then the vowel. Shift on that same key gives the diaeresis for pingüino.
  • ¿ and ¡ open questions and exclamations. They share the key to the left of Backspace: ¡ unshifted, ¿ on Shift.

Typepace takes its finger map from that layout. When the results screen names a key that cost you time, it means the key under your finger on a Spanish board, and the drill it offers next is built from Spanish words that contain it.

What WPM and accuracy mean here

Typepace reports two speeds and keeps them apart. Raw WPM counts every character you entered. Net WPM counts the characters you got right the first time you reached them. A word means five characters, the standard convention, so these figures compare with tests you have taken elsewhere.

Accuracy follows the same rule. Each position is judged once, when you first arrive at it. Backspace repairs the screen and leaves the record alone, because the skill worth building is pressing the right key rather than fixing the wrong one.

Why your Spanish speed may differ from your English

Accented vowels take two presses each, so a Spanish passage costs more keystrokes than its letter count suggests. ñ, ¿ and ¡ sit in positions your English muscle memory has nothing to say about. Expect a first Spanish run to land under your English figure while those reaches are new.

Compare a Spanish run with your earlier Spanish runs. Next to your English figure it mostly tells you which language you have typed more of.

The text is real Spanish throughout. The word list runs in frequency order, the quotations come from Cervantes, Machado and the traditional refranes, and the longer passages were written in Spanish from the start, so the accents fall where a Spanish writer puts them.

Common questions

Do I need a Spanish keyboard to take this test?

No. The test scores the characters that arrive, however your machine produces them. The finger notes assume the Spanish ISO board, so on a US layout read them as advice about the standard board rather than yours.

How do I type ñ and the accents on a US keyboard?

On a US International layout, AltGr and n gives ñ, and the apostrophe key followed by a gives á. On macOS, Option and n then n gives ñ, and Option and e then a gives á. Holding a vowel down also opens the accent picker.

Does a missing accent count as an error?

Yes. An á typed as a plain a is a miss at that position, the same as any other wrong character. Forgetting the dead key costs you the letter, not only the mark.

How long should a Spanish typing test be?

Sixty seconds places your speed and gives the accented keys more than one appearance. Use thirty to warm up and a hundred and twenty for a figure you can trust.

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