German typing test
Teste deine Tippgeschwindigkeit mit den häufigsten deutschen Wörtern. Kostenlos und ohne Anmeldung.
Type the most common German words for 60 seconds and see your words per minute, accuracy and consistency. The clock starts with your first key.
The timer starts with your first key.Tab or Esc restarts
Typing German on your keyboard
German keyboards are QWERTZ: Y and Z swap places compared with QWERTY. Ä, ö and ü have keys of their own, to the right of L and P, and ß is to the right of 0.
Every German noun starts with a capital, so this test has capitals: 12 of its 200 words start with one, and Shift gets far more use than in an English test.
On a keyboard without them, plain letters count: type a for ä and a single s for ß.
The words in this test
Each test draws at random from the 200 most common German words. They average 4.3 letters, against 4 in the English test. These are the first 30:
- die
- der
- und
- in
- das
- ich
- ist
- nicht
- zu
- den
- von
- mit
- es
- ein
- auf
- für
- im
- sie
- eine
- sich
- auch
- dem
- des
- als
- er
- an
- dass
- so
- bei
- wie
The letters you will press most
- e 18%
- n 10%
- i 9%
- s 7%
- r 7%
- a 6%
- h 6%
- d 5%
Getting faster in German
Your speed, accuracy and best here are German numbers, kept apart from any other language. After a test, practice in German finds the letters that slow you down and builds its text around them. The score is counted as in the main typing test, which explains how.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type ä, ö, ü and ß without a German keyboard?
On Windows, add the United States-International layout: press " then a for ä, and Right Alt and S for ß. On a Mac, press Option-U then a for ä, and Option-S for ß.
Sources: Microsoft: United States-International keyboard layout; Apple: Enter characters with accent marks on Mac
How do I set my keyboard to German?
On Windows 11, open Settings, then Time & language, then Language & region, and add German. Hold the Windows key and press Space to switch keyboards. On a Mac, open System Settings, then Keyboard, then Text Input, choose Edit, and add German. Control and Space switches between them.
Sources: Microsoft: Manage the input and display language settings in Windows; Apple: Write in another language on your Mac
Can I compare my German speed with my English speed?
The counting is the same: five typed characters are one word, so 60 WPM means 300 correct characters a minute in any language. The words here average 4.3 letters, against 4 in the English test. Your two numbers will still differ, because how well you know a language’s words and letter patterns matters as much as your fingers. Each language keeps its own best, so you always compare like with like.
Where do the words in this German test come from?
They are the 200 most common German words in wordfreq, a research list of word frequencies built from subtitles, news, books and web text. We took out names, abbreviations and words unfit for children, and each test draws at random from what is left.
Source: wordfreq, by Robyn Speer