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How to Type in Indonesian — Indonesian Touch Typing on QWERTY

How to Type in Indonesian — Indonesian Touch Typing on QWERTY

· 2 min read · by Robin Érsek-Obádovics

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the most-spoken language in Southeast Asia (~270 million speakers including L2). Surprisingly, it uses plain QWERTY-US with NO special characters — making it one of the easiest languages to touch type fluently.

Indonesian character set

  • Standard A-Z (uses all 26 Latin letters)
  • No diacritics, no accents
  • No special characters needed
  • Optional é in older spelling (post-1972 reform replaced é with e)

This makes Indonesian among the easiest European-alphabet-style languages to type.

QWERTY-US for Indonesian

No special layout needed. Standard US QWERTY works perfectly. Indonesian's adoption of Latin script (post-Dutch colonial era) was deliberately designed for compatibility with English typewriters.

Practice Indonesian at /id/.

Common Indonesian typing patterns

  • dan, yang, di, ke, ini, itu — common short words
  • terima kasih, maaf, permisi — politeness
  • Indonesia, Jakarta, Bali — proper nouns
  • bagus, besar, kecil — common adjectives
  • selamat pagi, selamat malam — greetings

Indonesian's typing advantage

Why Indonesian is easy to type:

  1. Pure A-Z — no diacritics
  2. Phonetic spelling — write what you hear
  3. No tones (unlike Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese)
  4. Words separated by spaces (unlike Chinese, Japanese, Thai)
  5. Reasonable word length — not as long as German/Finnish

Fluent Indonesian typists easily reach 70-80 WPM — comparable to English speeds.

Touch typing tips

  1. Standard QWERTY — no layout adjustment needed
  2. Practice common words — terima kasih, selamat, etc.
  3. Drill nasal patterns — ng, ny (common in Indonesian)
  4. Repeated vowels common — aa, oo, ee patterns
  5. Faster than most languages due to simplicity

Target: 55-65 WPM in 4-6 weeks (faster than diacritic-heavy languages).

Frequently Asked Questions

Why doesn't Indonesian use diacritics?

Adopted Latin script in Dutch colonial era. The 1972 spelling reform simplified everything (removing the few diacritics that existed). Modern Indonesian is fully A-Z compatible.

Is Indonesian similar to Malay?

Yes — Indonesian and Malay are mutually intelligible (often called "Malay" generically). Same writing system, same keyboard. See How to type in Malay.

Are there regional Indonesian languages with special characters?

Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese have their own scripts historically. Modern usage of these languages is mostly via Latin script (using Indonesian QWERTY-US).

Why is Indonesian typing easy?

No diacritics, no tones, phonetic spelling, standard QWERTY. All factors line up for fast typing.

What about Acehnese, Bataknese, other languages?

Many regional Indonesian languages use ad-hoc Latin spellings via standard QWERTY-US.

Can I learn Indonesian quickly?

For typing: yes, very easy (4-6 weeks to fluency). The language itself takes longer to learn (months/years).

Practice Indonesian typing

Practice Indonesian on Typing Hero App — 19 lessons using standard QWERTY.

For more: How to type in Malay, How to type in Filipino, How to type in English.