Left-Hand Typing Practice (QWERTY)

The list in numbers

The longest left-hand words on QWERTY

Practice words used in the test above

The test mixes common everyday words first, then short dictionary words, so the drill feels natural. Press Tab for a fresh set.

One-handed typing

These drills help if you are recovering from a hand or wrist injury, building strength in your weaker hand, or simply want to train each hand on its own. On QWERTY, the left hand handles far more of English than the right, which is why there are 1,328 left-hand words and only 374 right-hand words.

If you will type with one hand for a long time, look into dedicated one-handed layouts. Windows, macOS and Linux include left-handed and right-handed Dvorak layouts that put every letter within reach of a single hand. They take practice, but they are far faster than hunting across a full keyboard.

Tips for typing with one hand

• Center your hand over the middle of the keyboard rather than its usual half, so every key is a short reach.
• Use your thumb for the space bar and let the other four fingers cover the letters.
• Keep sessions short, five to ten minutes, and stop if you feel pain.
• Turn on Sticky Keys in your accessibility settings so Shift and Ctrl combinations need only one finger at a time.

How we built this list

We checked every lowercase word in the SCOWL-based US English Hunspell dictionary (61,935 base words) against the QWERTY layout on a standard keyboard. Proper nouns, abbreviations and words with apostrophes are excluded, and plural or past-tense forms are not added separately. A word counts as words you can type with only your left hand only if every letter qualifies.

More word lists

Frequently asked questions