Is it possible to touch type fast on more than one layouts?

Question

I am a touch typist on Turkish-Q keyboard. I want to switch to dvorak but standard dvorak keyboard does not have Turkish characters on it. I do not type in Turkish very often but sometimes I need it at work.

I tried to rearrange my current layout to dvorak with the Turkish chars but there are too many conflicts and even if I could come up with a good layout, I would have to download and install it every time I use a different computer.

The best solution for me is typing the fastest on dvorak English and typing with an acceptable speed on some other layout with Turkish chars.

Is it possible to type fast with more than one layout? Can you do it successfully?

Answer 1

Yes it is possible. Yes you can do it successfully.

It depends on how much you skill yourself up. How you level on each keyboard layout is up to the individual. You might find yourself having to at first remember which layout you're on if you switch back and forth, but when you're into it, it's all just flow.

Answer 2

Different "feel" can help you separate the layouts in your motor memory = use two different kinds of keyboard for the layouts, for instance a "straight" one for QWERTY and an ergonomic one for Dvorak. Just the feel of it will put you into the proper style.

I have different keyboards - one is a normal PC keyboard using QWERTY (in Danish), another is a FingerWorks TouchStream using Dvorak (standard US English layout). This difference in "feel" is significant and helps a lot!

Answer 3

It's possible. I can type very fast with Dvorak, but also fast with Qwerty.

For me it was never difficult to maintain both layouts. As long as you practice each one every once in a while, you probably won't forget it. Though you might lose some of your speed on the less dominant layout (for example, I still make some mistakes on Qwerty because I use the Dvorak placement)

Answer 4

I use both keyboard layouts regularly: at home on my computer I use Dvorak, but at school and on other people's computers, I use QWERTY. It was definitely harder to use QWERTY on my own (ergonomic) keyboard when I needed to switch back to take a writing test on a public computer, but it was possible.