Fact · Dictation for work and study
3.4hours
Ten hours of keyboard writing at 52 words per minute would take about 3.4 hours to enter by speech at 153 words per minute, before editing.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
- How it is calculated
- 10 hours x 52 / 153 = 3.40 hours of speaking, for the same number of words
Calculated from
- In the same controlled study on an iPhone, English text entered on the built-in QWERTY keyboard reached 52 words per minute, against 153 words per minute by speech.
- In a controlled study on an iPhone, English text entered by speech reached 153 words per minute, against 52 words per minute on the built-in keyboard, 2.93 times faster.
Used to calculate
- If correction took 65 percent of the dictation session, as in the 2001 study, 10 hours of keyboard writing would save only about 0.3 hours.
- If correcting the dictated draft takes a quarter of the speaking time, 10 hours of keyboard writing save about 5.8 hours net.
- Ten hours of keyboard writing would take about 6.6 hours less to enter by speech than by typing, before any correction time.