This Japanese typing test shows real Japanese words – kanji, hiragana and katakana – with the romaji spelling printed under each one. You type the romaji on an ordinary keyboard, exactly the key sequence you would press with a Japanese input method, so you practise the same finger patterns Japanese typists use every day. It is free, needs no Japanese keyboard and no IME, and works in any browser. In Japanese this is a タイピングテスト (typing test) or タイピング練習 (typing practice).
How does Japanese typing work?
Japanese has thousands of characters, so no keyboard can hold them all. Instead, almost everyone types through an IME (input method editor) in three steps:
- Type the sound in romaji. You press ka and the IME shows か. Most Japanese people type this way rather than with the kana printed on Japanese keys.
- Convert. Press Space and the IME offers kanji that match the sound – かんじ becomes 漢字.
- Confirm. Press Enter to accept the choice and move on.
Step 1 is where your speed comes from. Choosing kanji is mostly reading and a few presses of Space. So a Japanese typing test in romaji measures the part that takes practice: turning sounds into keystrokes quickly and without mistakes.
Romaji you will type most
| Kana | Romaji keys | Note |
|---|---|---|
| か き く け こ | ka ki ku ke ko | Consonant + vowel: the basic pattern |
| し ち つ ふ | shi chi tsu fu | Spelled with extra letters |
| きゃ しゅ ちょ | kya shu cho | Small ゃ ゅ ょ blend into one syllable |
| っ (small tsu) | double consonant | きって = kitte |
| ん | n, or nn where an IME needs it (before a vowel, y or n) | ほん = hon, きんようび = kinnyoubi, おんなのこ = onnnanoko |
| Long vowels おう, うう | ou, uu – typed as written in kana, not ō or ū | がっこう = gakkou, じゅう = juu |
| Katakana long mark ー | - (the hyphen key) | コーヒー = ko-hi- |
| を and the particle は | wo and ha – the keys an IME expects | こんばんは = konbanha |
Type exactly the romaji shown under each word. The spelling follows what you would press in a Japanese IME, which is why long vowels appear as ou rather than ō and the katakana long mark is a hyphen. Textbooks use slightly different spellings (for example shi or si), and the test checks the letters on screen.
How to take the Japanese typing test here
When you choose Japanese, the Keyboard option changes to Type romaji (English letters). The on-screen keyboard shows a normal QWERTY layout coloured by finger, and the animated hands show which finger presses the next letter. Turn off your Japanese IME (or switch it to half-width English) before you start; if the IME is on, the letters will turn into kana and will not match.
This Japan typing test offers the usual types of typing test. You can take a timed test from 15 seconds to 10 minutes, type a fixed 10–100 words, or choose paragraph mode for longer connected Japanese text with romaji under each word. Other examples of typing test formats – a numbers test with digits mixed in, or a short 15-second sprint – work here too, so there are different types of typing test for every goal. Every test is live: your speed updates as you type, just like a Japanese live typing test. The test works on phones too, which is handy for Japanese typing practice on mobile, though a physical keyboard gives the most useful score.
How your score is measured
Because you type romaji, the score counts the Latin letters you typed. That makes it directly comparable with an English result.
WPM = (correct characters ÷ 5) ÷ minutes
Accuracy = correct keystrokes ÷ all keystrokes × 100
Example. In a 1-minute test you type 225 romaji characters and 215 are correct. Speed = 215 ÷ 5 ÷ 1 = 43 WPM, raw speed = 225 ÷ 5 = 45 WPM, CPM = 215, accuracy = 215 ÷ 225 = about 96%.
Japanese typing sites often report keystrokes per minute instead of WPM. Since each romaji letter is one key, your CPM is roughly your keystrokes per minute: 215 CPM is about 215 keys a minute. As a rough guide, many office typists land somewhere around 150–250 romaji keystrokes per minute, and fast typists go well beyond 300.
How to learn Japanese typing
- Learn touch typing on QWERTY first. Romaji uses the vowels A I U E O constantly, so your left little finger (A), right middle finger (I), right index finger (U), left middle finger (E) and right ring finger (O) do most of the work. The touch typing course teaches this from the home row up.
- Practise the syllable chunks. Drill shi, tsu, chi, kyo, sho until they feel like one movement, not three letters.
- Read ahead. Look at the next word while you finish the current one. This matters more in Japanese than in English, because you are reading one script and typing another.
- Short tests, every day. A few 1-minute tests daily, and one longer test a week, build speed without tiring your hands.
- Add games. For a lighter Japanese typing practice game, the typing games can use Japanese words and romaji too.
Treat each session like a short Japanese typing quiz: the typing test results show exactly which letters failed. After each test, the "keys to practise" list opens a drill in typing practice built from the letters you missed.
How to add a Japanese keyboard for real typing
For this test you do not need one. When you want to type Japanese in documents and chat, add the free Japanese IME that comes with your system:
- Windows 11: to add the Japanese keyboard, open Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language → Japanese. Windows 10: for a Japanese keyboard, open Settings → Time & Language → Language → Add a language → Japanese. Then you can type Japanese on Windows: switch with Win + Space, and toggle kana/English with Alt + `.
- Mac: System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources → Edit → + → Japanese – Romaji. Switch with Ctrl + Space.
- iPhone: to type Japanese on an iPhone, open Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard → Japanese, then choose Romaji or Kana. Tap the globe key to switch.
My keyboard is typing in Japanese – how do I switch back?
Your IME is in kana mode. On Windows press Alt + ` (or the 半角/全角 key on a Japanese keyboard) to go back to English letters, or Win + Space to change keyboards. On a Mac press Ctrl + Space or choose ABC in the menu bar.
@, quotation marks and lol on a Japanese keyboard
On a Japanese (JIS) keyboard the @ key sits just right of P and needs no Shift. To type Japanese quotation marks, use 「 and 」, which come from the [ and ] keys while the IME is on. And the Japanese way to type "lol" is simply w or www (from 笑う, to laugh).
Japanese keyboard tester
If a key on your Japan keyboard seems to miss or repeat, open the keyboard test first. It works as a Japanese keyboard tester for JIS and US layouts alike: press every key, including 変換 and 無変換, and see which ones register.
For Japanese speakers: タイピング練習 on this site
In Japanese, typing is タイピング and practice is 練習, which is why most people search for タイピング練習. Everything on this page is 無料 (free) and runs in the browser, so you do not need a タイピング練習 app (アプリ) on a パソコン (PC), iPad or iPhone.
- One minute (1分): the 1-minute タイピングテスト is the quickest check, and a daily タイピング練習 of one minute (一分間) is enough to get started.
- Long texts (長文): paragraph mode gives connected sentences, which is closer to real タイピング at work than single words.
- Score and level (スコア, レベル): many Japanese sites turn a タイピングテスト result into a スコア and a レベル. Here you get WPM, accuracy, characters per minute and consistency instead, which you can compare with any English test.
- Average (平均): a common office level on a romaji タイピングテスト is about 200 keystrokes per minute, roughly 40 WPM.
- Phones (スマホ): the タイピングテスト also runs on a スマホ, but thumb and flick typing are a different skill, so compare phone scores only with phone scores.
- Job interviews (面接): some office jobs in Japan include a タイピングテスト alongside the 面接. Practise at the same length the employer uses and keep accuracy above 95%.
- Complete beginners: if you still look for each key's 位置 (position) on the アルファベット keyboard, or are learning the romaji for あいうえお, take the typing lessons first and come back to this タイピング練習 afterwards.
- Fun (楽しい): to make タイピング more 楽しい, play a ゲーム – Word Rain, Space Typer and the other games all accept Japanese words with romaji.
Kana input and hiragana practice
A small number of Japanese typists use kana input, where each key types a kana printed on the JIS keyboard. This site does not have a kana layout; its Japanese typing speed test for hiragana readers works the romaji way – you read the hiragana and kanji, and type the sounds. That is the method most learners and most Japanese office workers use, and it needs no special keyboard. For Japanese typing practice with hiragana, use paragraph mode: its sentences are full of hiragana particles and endings such as の, は, を and います, so you read kana constantly and type their sounds.