Boost Your Typing Skills with Science
Understanding letter frequency is one of the most effective techniques to improve both keyboard speed and accuracy. Research shows that focusing practice on the most common letters can help you type faster by optimizing finger movement patterns (Cornell University, 2004).
Why Letter Frequency Matters for Typists
- Efficient practice: 50% of English text uses just 9 letters (E, T, A, O, I, N, S, R, H) (Oxford English Corpus, 2019)
- Keyboard optimization: Common letters are placed on the home row in efficient layouts (Dvorak et al., 1936)
- Error reduction: Knowing frequent letter pairs helps anticipate movements (Logan, 1999)
Scientific Ranking of English Letter Frequency
Based on analysis of over 200,000 words from multiple linguistic studies and text corpora (WordsRated, 2022):
Top 10 Most Common English Letters
| Rank | Letter | Frequency Range | Key Usage Patterns |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | E | 12.02–12.7% | Dominates in common words like "the," plurals (-es), and pronouns (Cornell University, 2004) |
| 2 | T | 9.1–9.37% | Frequently pairs with "H" in high-frequency words (e.g., "the," "this") (British National Corpus, 2007) |
| 3 | A | 8.04–8.34% | Essential for articles ("a," "an") and foundational words (American Heritage, 1971) |
| 4 | O | 7.64–7.7% | Common in pronouns ("you," "who") and short words (Dewey, 1920) |
| 5 | I | 6.71–7.57% | Used in pronouns ("I," "it") and verbs (COCA, 2020) |
| 6 | N | 6.67–7.23% | Appears in conjunctions ("and") and verb endings (-ing) (Norvig, 2012) |
| 7 | S | 6.11–9.52% | Critical for plurals and possessive forms (Brown Corpus, 1967) |
| 8 | R | 5.68–7.07% | Frequent in verbs and suffixes (-er, -or) (Hofland & Johansson, 1982) |
| 9 | H | 5.05–6.11% | Often paired with "T" ("th") (Oxford Text Archive, 2015) |
| 10 | L | 3.98–4.24% | Common in adverbs and conjunctions (Davies, 2017) |
Middle-Frequency Letters
| Rank | Letter | Frequency Range | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | D | 3.38–4.32% | (Google Books Ngram, 2019) |
| 12 | U | 2.73–2.88% | (Stanford NLP, 2018) |
| 13 | C | 2.71–4.09% | (Carroll et al., 1971) |
| 14 | M | 2.51–2.84% | (Leech et al., 2001) |
| 15 | F | 2.03–2.40% | (Piantadosi, 2014) |
| 16 | Y | 1.63–2.11% | (Cryptogram.org, 2020) |
| 17 | W | 1.57–2.34% | (The Economist, 2018) |
| 18 | G | 1.87–2.03% | (Beker & Piper, 1982) |
| 19 | P | 1.66–2.14% | (Francis & Kučera, 1967) |
| 20 | B | 1.48–1.54% | (Wiktionary, 2021) |
Least Common Letters
| Rank | Letter | Frequency Range | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | V | 0.98–1.11% | (SAS Institute, 2014) | |
| 22 | K | 0.54–0.87% | (Thesaurus.com, 2022) | |
| 23 | J | 0.10–0.23% | Least used in British English | (BNC, 2007) |
| 24 | X | 0.15–0.29% | (PMC Study, 2021) | |
| 25 | Q | 0.09–0.16% | Almost always followed by U | (Cornell Cryptography, 2004) |
| 26 | Z | 0.06–0.09% | Rarest, especially without American "-ize" spellings | (WordsRated, 2022) |
Key Insights for Typists
- Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) dominate the top rankings, comprising ~40% of total usage (Norvig, 2012)
- Consonants like S, R, N, and T are heavily used due to grammatical structures (Brown Corpus, 1967)
- Letter frequency varies by dialect and text type (COCA, 2020)
- Common letter pairs like TH, HE, AN, RE, and ER account for significant typing patterns (Logan, 1999)
Complete Scientific References
Primary Letter Frequency Studies
- Cornell University Mathematics (2004). English Letter Frequency Analysis. https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencies.html
- Norvig, P. (2012). English Letter Frequency Counts. https://norvig.com/mayzner.html
- WordsRated (2022). Comprehensive Letter Frequency Analysis. https://wordsrated.com/letter-frequency-in-english/
- British National Corpus (2007). Oxford University Press. https://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (2020). https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/
Historical & Supporting Research
- Dewey, G. (1920). Relative Frequency of English Letters. American Journal of Psychology
- Carroll, J.B. et al. (1971). The American Heritage Word Frequency Book
- Francis, W.N. & Kučera, H. (1967). Brown Corpus Manual
- Hofland, K. & Johansson, S. (1982). Word Frequencies in British and American English
- Beker, H. & Piper, F. (1982). Cipher Systems: The Protection of Communications
Typing & Learning Applications
- Dvorak, A. et al. (1936). Typewriter Keyboard Layout Patent
- Logan, G.D. (1999). Automaticity and Memory in Typing. Journal of Experimental Psychology
- PMC Study (2021). Letter Learning in Children. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8734658/
- Cornell Cryptography (2004). Letter Pair Analysis. https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/hints.html
Additional Resources
- Google Books Ngram Viewer (2019). Letter Frequency Trends
- Stanford NLP Group (2018). Common Word Analysis
- Oxford Text Archive (2015). Public Domain Text Analysis
- SAS Institute (2014). Letter Frequency in Google Books. https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2014/09/19/frequency-of-letters.html
- Thesaurus.com (2022). Most Common Letters. https://www.thesaurus.com/e/ways-to-say/most-common-letter/