Portuguese Typing Test (Português)

Type real Portuguese words — accents, cedillas and nasal vowels included — and get an honest WPM and accuracy score. The word set reflects how Português is actually written, so não counts only when the ã is right.

Portuguese Typing Test — Português WPM — Tips to Score Higher

Drill the tilde pair early The nasal vowels ã and õ exist in no other Latin-script language on this site, so practice não, irmão and então until the tilde motion is reflexive.
Own the -ção ending Words like situação, atenção and informação share one high-frequency ending — automate ç plus ão as a chunk and dozens of words speed up at once.
Pick one layout and stay on it ABNT2 and the Portuguese (PT-PT) layout put ç and the accent keys in different places; switching between them resets your muscle memory.

How typing in Portuguese works

Portuguese runs on the Latin alphabet plus the richest diacritic set of any Romance language: á â ã à é ê í ó ô õ ú and the cedilla ç. The tilde forms ã and õ mark nasal vowels — não, irmão, corações — and are unique to Portuguese among major Latin-script languages, which is precisely why Spanish or French typing habits do not fully transfer.

Which keys produce those characters depends on your layout. Brazil standardised on ABNT2, which gives ç its own dedicated key next to L and a dead-key pair for ~ and ´. Portugal uses the Portuguese (PT-PT) layout with the same idea in different positions. On US hardware, the US-International layout turns ~ and ' into dead keys: press ~ then a for ã, ' then e for é, ' then c for ç. A dead key adds a keystroke but no visible character until the vowel lands — that extra beat is the core rhythm difference from the plain English test, where every keystroke prints immediately.

WPM benchmarks for Portuguese

Accented characters make up 6–10% of natural Portuguese text, and every one of them costs either a dead-key sequence or a modifier. Typical results:

Beginner: 15–25 WPM while accent positions are still conscious decisions.
Everyday typist: 33–41 WPM, roughly 12–18% below the same person's English score.
Professional (legal, admin, transcription): 55–70+ WPM on a native ABNT2 or PT-PT layout.

The gap versus English comes almost entirely from diacritics — the letters themselves sit on familiar QWERTY positions. If you want a measure that ignores word-length differences between languages, compare characters per minute instead: Portuguese words average slightly longer than English ones, so CPM flatters Portuguese scores less than WPM penalises them. Spanish speakers usually start high thanks to shared vocabulary, then plateau on ã and õ until those get dedicated practice.

How to get faster in Portuguese

Setup: if you type Brazilian Portuguese on Windows, add "Portuguese (Brazil ABNT2)"; on a Mac, "Portuguese (Brazil)". For European Portuguese pick the PT-PT variants. US-hardware users should enable US-International and learn the dead-key combos (~ + a, ~ + o, ' + c) rather than Alt codes, which are ten times slower.

Highest-value drills, in order:

The nasal cluster: não, então, irmão, mão, pão — short words, maximum tilde repetitions per minute.
-ção / -ções endings: ação, situação, informações — one chunk that unlocks hundreds of nouns.
Circumflex pairs: você, três, avô — the ê/ô keys are rarer and easy to fumble under pressure.

Structure the work with the guided practice modules, and once your accuracy holds at 96%+, start logging weekly scores to benchmark yourself against other Portuguese typists.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I practice Brazilian or European Portuguese typing?

Type the variety you write daily. The vocabulary overlap is huge and this test's word list works for both, but the keyboards differ: Brazil's ABNT2 has a dedicated ç key and its own punctuation placement, while Portugal's PT-PT layout arranges accents differently. Muscle memory is layout-specific, so pick the layout matching your target country and avoid alternating between them during the learning phase.

How do I type ã and õ on a US keyboard?

Enable the US-International layout, then press the ~ dead key followed by the vowel: ~ then a gives ã, ~ then o gives õ. On macOS press Option+N then the vowel. Avoid Windows Alt codes (Alt+0227, Alt+0245) for live typing — they work but take five keystrokes each. If you type Portuguese daily, installing the actual ABNT2 or PT-PT layout is worth the one-week adjustment.

Why is my Portuguese WPM lower than my English score?

Accented characters are 6–10% of Portuguese text and each needs a dead-key sequence or modifier, which interrupts your rhythm; Portuguese words also run slightly longer on average. A 12–18% gap is normal for bilingual typists. The gap shrinks as the tilde and acute motions become automatic — track both WPM and accuracy over a few weeks and you should see the two curves converge toward your English baseline.

Does the test count an unaccented vowel as a correct letter?

No — accuracy is checked per character, and a differs from á, ã and â. Typing nao when the word is não registers an error, exactly as a spell-checker would flag it. That strictness is deliberate: accents change meaning in Portuguese (avô is grandfather, avó is grandmother), and a speed score built on accent-dropping would overstate your real-world Portuguese typing ability.

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