Fact · Languages and accents
17words per minute
In the same two-minute tasks, Japanese university students typed Japanese at 17 words per minute on cellphones, against 10 on onscreen QWERTY keyboards.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“In 2-minute transcription tasks, 24 Japanese university students typed Japanese:English at 8:7 wpm on miniature QWERTY thumb keyboards, 10:9 on onscreen QWERTY keyboards, 17:5 on cellphones, 23:14 on desktop PCs, and 31:30 with pencil and paper.”
Japanese college students' typing speed on mobile devices, Chris Houser and Patricia Thornton, Kinjo Gakuin University (conference paper, copy hosted by Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), n.d., Abstract.
Open the original- What it measures
- The cellphone result was higher than the onscreen QWERTY result in the same tasks, which the authors read as a sign that phones could be used for taking notes.
- What it does not show
- The study used devices of its own period, not current smartphones with predictive Japanese input. Treat the figure as a historical comparison.