My Steno journey, part 8
Apr. 30th, 2024 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseSo, I had to take a pause due to other RL stuff + other obligations. Technically, you're supposed to practice about 1-3 hours a day; a bit hard when it's a hobby and you've got other things going on in your life. Stenography students spend 2-3+ hours practice a day because it's a career path; I'm doing it for fun, so I feel less pressure to do so.
Anyway, I took a step back because I found I was looking at the keyboard too much. I'm getting better at touch typing, except for the occasional "Oh yes, the O is on the left side next to the A, not on the right side" and accidentally miskeying A for O and E for U. I'm consistently keying at 16-17 wpm on the easy stuff even after forcing myself not to look at the keyboard.
I'm also venturing into long vowels. I just never got the lesson about short vs long vowels down in elementary/middle school, I guess! At least I can usually remember that if it's a long vowel, I hit the two keys on the other side plus the vowel in question (or all four vowel keys if I'm keying a long I sound). There are some exceptions (OE is the "oh" in "boat" long vowel sound while OEU represents the diphthong sound "oi" sound in "toil"). There are also disambiguations for homophones; for example, "pair" uses the long "a" and is typed PAEUR while "pear" uses the PAER chord as it has an "ea" in it.
It may well take me 2-3 years to type at a decent, above 60 wpm speed, but I'm okay with that.
In any case, ran across this amusing abbreviation in Plover theory: SPURPBLS, "Spell your name, please", along with its cousins, SPUFRPBLS (Spell your full name, please) and SP*UFRPBLS (Spell your first name, please).
Anyway, I took a step back because I found I was looking at the keyboard too much. I'm getting better at touch typing, except for the occasional "Oh yes, the O is on the left side next to the A, not on the right side" and accidentally miskeying A for O and E for U. I'm consistently keying at 16-17 wpm on the easy stuff even after forcing myself not to look at the keyboard.
I'm also venturing into long vowels. I just never got the lesson about short vs long vowels down in elementary/middle school, I guess! At least I can usually remember that if it's a long vowel, I hit the two keys on the other side plus the vowel in question (or all four vowel keys if I'm keying a long I sound). There are some exceptions (OE is the "oh" in "boat" long vowel sound while OEU represents the diphthong sound "oi" sound in "toil"). There are also disambiguations for homophones; for example, "pair" uses the long "a" and is typed PAEUR while "pear" uses the PAER chord as it has an "ea" in it.
It may well take me 2-3 years to type at a decent, above 60 wpm speed, but I'm okay with that.
In any case, ran across this amusing abbreviation in Plover theory: SPURPBLS, "Spell your name, please", along with its cousins, SPUFRPBLS (Spell your full name, please) and SP*UFRPBLS (Spell your first name, please).
