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Keyboard layouts

The same physical keyboard with different letters printed on it. Which letters, and where, decides which finger you should be using — so a chart for the wrong layout teaches the wrong habit.

English (QWERTY)

ASDF JKL;

The standard layout across the English-speaking world.

French (AZERTY)

QSDF JKLM

France. A/Q and Z/W swap, M moves to the home row, and digits need Shift.

German (QWERTZ)

ASDF JKLÖ

Germany and Austria. Y and Z swap, and ä ö ü ß get their own keys.

Spanish (QWERTY)

ASDF JKLÑ

Spain. Ñ takes the semicolon key, and ¡ ¿ get a key of their own.

Portuguese (Portugal)

ASDF JKLÇ

Portugal. Ç takes the semicolon key. Brazil's ABNT2 is a different board.

What actually changes

Almost nothing physical. The left index finger owns the same two columns everywhere, F and J carry the same moulded bumps on every keyboard sold anywhere in the world, and the home row is the same eight positions under the same eight fingers. What changes is the character each position produces — and because touch typing is a map from finger to character, changing the characters changes the whole map.

There is one genuinely physical difference. US keyboards are ANSI: 101 keys, a wide flat Enter, a long left Shift. European keyboards are ISO: 102 keys, a tall Enter, and a real extra key between the left Shift and Z. If you are in France or Germany and a typing site shows you a keyboard with no key there, it is showing you somebody else’s hardware.

Which ones this site supports

The five above. Each was checked against the national standard before it was published, because an approximate layout is worse than a missing one — a learner has no way to tell that the keyboard they are being shown is not the keyboard in front of them, and will assume they are the one making the mistake.

For the same reason these are not offered: Belgian AZERTY, Swiss QWERTZ, Latin American Spanish, and Brazilian ABNT2. Each is close to one of the five and identical to none.

The 415-level course itself is written for US QWERTY. The keyboard charts, finger guidance and the speed test work on any of the layouts above; the lesson content does not yet have a per-layout version.

Questions about keyboard layouts

Can I use a QWERTY typing course on an AZERTY keyboard?

Not for the finger training, which is the part that matters. On AZERTY the A and Q keys are swapped, Z and W are swapped, and M moves from the bottom row to the home row — so a QWERTY course names the wrong finger for four common letters and gives you the wrong home row. The speed test itself is fine on any layout, because you are reproducing text rather than following a key map.

Why does AZERTY need Shift for numbers?

Because the unshifted number row carries the accented letters French needs constantly — é è ç à — and those are worth more to a French writer than unshifted digits. It is the single biggest day-to-day difference between AZERTY and QWERTY, and it is a genuine skill: a French typist reaches for Shift on every digit.

What is the difference between QWERTY and QWERTZ?

Y and Z swap, and ä, ö, ü and ß get dedicated keys on the right-hand side. The swap is not arbitrary: Z is common in German and Y is rare, so Z moves to a strong index finger position while Y goes to the weak pinky stretch that Z occupies on QWERTY.

Does the layout change my typing speed?

Your speed does not transfer between layouts — switching makes you a beginner again for several weeks, because the spatial map your fingers rely on is layout-specific. Between QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ there is no meaningful difference in achievable speed for a trained typist; the differences are in which language each one writes comfortably.

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