A slightly abridged version of the video from last year. Interested in learning? Watch my 2024 Hobbyist's Guide to Steno: czcams.com/video/rYUmsUx0oSo/video.html Yes, I am aware of the mistakes I made in trying to live caption this video. "you can see the keys" -> "you see the keys" (missed a key) "dictionaries to" -> "dictionary toss" (stacked the last two strokes) "like this" -> "like system this" (stroked S-PL by accident while fingerspelling) No, I am not going to redo this video just because of a few mistakes.
I actually found that even more informative to read how the errors were made and feel it adds more reality to the video rather than thinking I’m horrible because others seem to be able to just do it perfect all the time.
@@haj98 haha, yeah it's hard to achieve really high accuracy at high speed. It's amazing how realtime captioners like Mirabai Knight can do 99.9% accuracy at 225+ WPM.
I just happened to see a video done by "half as interesting" about steno and now this one appeared on youtube. Very interesting. I have no desire to learn but at age 66, I still love learning about new things. Well done.
I actually learned how steno works when i read the name of the wind. The main character was being interviewed, and the interviewer utilized a stenographic system to take notes. Reducing words to their phonemic constructs for quicker notation is quite genius, honestly.
Very interesting video! I use a standard QWERTY Layout and my typing speed peaks at around 160WPM, so I can actually transcribe slowerish speech too, but being at 200 seems like it'd be a lot more comfortable. Very neat!
Před rokem+10
The pros write ate about 240 WPM I think, with steno.
That's pretty good. I personally find that most of the time I'm limited by the rate at which I think rather than how fast my fingers can type. The real issue is that I have a tendency to get completely wrong words mixed in with what I'm typing because that's how fast I am.
@@rickwilliams967 was just reminded of your idiotic comment. Who hurt you lol? Also who taught you to read? They both did you equally dirty apparently.
This is really helpful! Before I came across your channel, I knew I wanted to learn steno. But I didn't know how to go about it. Now I learned from this channel about the Splitography and helpful modifications to it! I bought one and looking at your amazing journey, I know for certain I can do this. A proof of concept can be decisive in taking action and reaching our goals. I am very grateful for this channel, thank you!
The ability to write in Vietnamese is very very handy. My mom could use this. I really like the idea of having a much smaller footprint. I use an ortholinear split keyboard and it does the job for me but I want less wires and it took me a while to adjust so I’m not sure I could practically learn this but I’d give it a try cause I like the idea of having it with small portable pc work.
If you'd like to have your mom use steno, I would recommend using this person's viet system over mine: github.com/user202729/plover_vi The key shapes are less awkward, there's more potential in their system, and it's easier to install.
Your intro videos have been a huge help in getting me started. Thanks! Unfortunately, much of the hardware you discuss is out of production. I would love to see your opinion of solutions like using a Planck keyboard with G20 keycaps and light switches like Gateron clears. When you use this combo, you end up paying a comparable amount to the hardware you discuss on your channel. So I think it's worth looking into. Keep up the great work!
Yeah, it is a shame that a lot of hobbyist machines are out of stock at moment (there is still the Splitography and TinyMod, at least). The Ecosteno is looking at a restock, however, and the Uni will begin to be mass produced in the new year, so there's a bright future ahead for affordable steno hardware. I have indeed looked at the Planck, and I even considered getting one last year (I ended up going for the Splitography instead as it was being restocked). It's definitely a solid choice, the Gateron Clear switches are also used in the less expensive version of the TinyMod as well as the Uni. I actually have been thinking of creating a hardware guide video, and I'm definitely going to mention the Planck. With it going for less than $90 on drop without switches and keycaps, it is certainly very affordable. But I'm not sure how much more I can comment on it as I've not assembled one and I find Gateron Clears too heavy to steno for longer than 10 minutes.
FYI, the EcoSteno is supposed to be in stock within a day or two and is one of the cheaper options at $85. I’d sign up for their mailing list or go to their discord to know when it goes online.
Reminded me when I was during my high school days I had to learn shorthand and I could easily reach at 120 wpm .. Was actually kind of fun and guess not many out there have even heard of this🌝
Amazing teaching skills my friend. Mixed with the visuals and great editing. I am very blown away at your mind young man. Please keep up the amazing work thank you for this video. It means a lot.
I have been looking into stenography because I find it fascinating. I may take it up at a local college in Chicago. In addition to pursuing work as a court reporter, because I find court proceedings fascinating, I would also want to design software for stenography. I used to work on a Jeopardy archive site, and I got the idea to steno an episode of Jeopardy and be able to automatically upload a transcript to the archive site to have all the clues entered as soon as the episode airs.
Amazing stuff Aerick, it's at this point I wonder if I am to try this, what have I got myself in for?! haha Anyway, your videos are definitely the best resource I've seen for learning and understanding more about the how and why, great stuff!
I didn’t realize you learned this in your spare time, I thought this was your profession! Very knowledgeable!How and why did you get started in steno, and what’s your normal profession?
Thank you! I had learned this because I just thought it looked cool and I wanted to type faster (I was 15 at the time). I'm currently in my last year of high school.
@@AerickSteno Soooo... I hope you take this as a compliment, but I thought you were much older, like even a college graduate. I'll be keeping an eye on your channel, you are definitely going places.
By the way, as a practitioner in the field of Digital Forensics, I can tell you that if you get into a profession where there is any amount of typing (that's most of them these days), you'll have an incredible edge on everyone around you if you can type faster. Being able to type reports faster, getting through your emails faster, etc. That's why I started looking into steno is because I was saturating my typing speed (about 80 wpm) with all of things I need to write. I wish they taught this in school along with the keyboarding classes.
@@AerickSteno Geez its just hard to think about the fact that people my age are becoming successful on youtube already. I wish you luck in your endeavors.
Wow. You’re in high school? You’re going to have such an edge over your university/college peers in time efficiency. More sleep! Getting through essay assignments/reports would have been much easier as a student if I was able to type close to my thinking speed. Then there was the issue that I had to purposely type slower to avoid hand cramping to sustain working that long. Ah well. At least now I can change my typing ergonomics in my professional life. So many emails and reports… I just got The Uni keyboard a few days ago. 4 WPM. I hope it doesn’t take me a year to reach my QWERTY typing speed.
@@AerickSteno I don't think that my typing speed was ever a bottleneck for anything. Like 99% of the time is spent thinking about *what* to write, not for typing it. Unless maybe if you can't touch type at all and are always searching the key with one finger.
@@Mobin92 Totally understand. It's the same for me, I have to think about what I want to write first and typing fast doesn't really give me an advantage in that regard. But the ergonomic benefit of using steno is really compelling to me. I could be typing at 80 WPM or using steno at 150 WPM, with the former being unsustainable for long periods of times (I usually have to slow down a fair bit if I type for more than 5 minutes). As I've mentioned, 150 WPM with steno is about 3 strokes per second whereas typing at 80 WPM requires having to press about 7 keys every second in sequence. I also just like being able to type my words out faster so that I can start thinking about what I want to say next without also having to type what I currently want to say. It's a feeling that a lot of people allude to "thinking with your fingers". I think it is something hard to explain without experiencing it.
When I was in my covid-semester, I was typing all day, and I had issues with hand cramping and loss of feeling in my fingers. The best investment I've made was a fancy angled split keyboard. Now I actually type properly, and my hands don't get cramped as much. Now I am starting to convince myself that I need yet another keyboard...
@@macattack123mattc3 Ergonomic keyboards were a game changer for me as well. I started off with the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard and am now using a Logitech ERGO K860, which I like much better. Maybe I will one day make the jump into learning and entirely new layout (Dvorak, Colemak) or typing system altogether (steno, Charachorder)...
Very interesting! I learned to use the Dvorak keyboard about 15 years ago and this video makes me appreciate my ability to use it. Like the steno, you can type "chunks" of words with a lot less finger motion than on a qwerty keyboard.
Great video and explanation on how stenography works. I used to do broadcast captioning and trying to explain to people how it works would sometimes confuse them more LOL. 🌴☀️🌴
Yeah I honestly hate having to explain how steno works to people when they see my weird keyboard haha. I have huge respect for broadcast captioners, that's awesome!
@@AerickSteno Thanks. I’ll let you in on a little unknown fact. As a captioner we aim to provide verbatim, but when things get “heated” at times on Live (think sports, weather) we are allowed to paraphrase as long as it does not change the meaning of what’s being said 😄.
wow, great stuff! ty so much , I’ve always wanted to know how this worked!! So cool, had no idea it was like this. I think I have to learn how to now !!🤘
I saw a good explanation once that its better to think of a stenograph as a muscial instrument than a keyboard. An instrument that plays syllables of speech rather than musical notes.
Hi Aerick, how would you compare your current qwerty layout speed to when you hadn't started learning steno? I'm thinking of learning plover steno but am afraid that I might lose my qwerty speed by a lot, especially if I fail at progressing in steno. Any advices?
My QWERTY speed has completely stayed the same since learning steno. Especially if you have separate keyboards for steno and QWERTY, your fingers won't get confused at all. Regular typing and steno are totally different.
@@whyiseverysinglehandletaken2 Well, my dvorak has replaced my qwerty. I can't type without looking at my keys when using qwerty. So on the same keyboard I imagine it could cause conflicts.
I type Chinese(Bopomofo), English(QWERTY), Japanese(Kana Input), Korean(2-set) and Hindi(Inscript) on the same keyboard. Since I rarely get confused when I type, I'd say it's probably safe to learn a different input method (from losing speed)
I'm a student now at 140 wpm. It's strange how starting off it looked like complete jibberish and now my brain basically sees it as English lol. It's fascinating how the brain works. Muscle memory is also a big one.
Check out my pinned comment, I've already mentioned it there! In any case, I am not a professional live captioner; everything I've shown in this video was from learning it in my spare time.
It's certainly doable: Me writing C with steno: czcams.com/video/fUFjBVekmj8/video.html LaTeX with steno: czcams.com/video/UYqK5C6iw10/video.html Paul Firoavanti writing C with steno: czcams.com/video/egReh-6maNw/video.html (He also has tons of other cool demos for coding with steno in other languages) Josiah speedrunning vim tutor: czcams.com/video/8-oDPhmpN9g/video.html Whether it's worth your time learning is a different question. It's a bit like learning vim or emacs; you can't really beat the efficiency, but you have to spend a lot of time learning to get to that point. But in this case, there are tons of ways to optimize programming on a regular QWERTY keyboard that it doesn't make sense to learn steno just to improve your programming.
Wow, your stenographer skills impressed me. I wonder some day there will be VoiceToText recognition software what will be doing all that hard work for us.😀
"Stenographer" is the name of the person who does stenography (it's actually "stenography skills"). Jokes aside, people have been promising really accurate speech to text and AI systems to replace stenographers. But it's been like that for the last 20 years, and I really doubt stenographers will be replaced any time soon.
That was super interesting, and I can imagine it will be very useful for writing essays, emails, and whatever else you might get up to. Are you interested in becoming employed as a stenographer? I wonder if voice-to-text technology will eliminate many of these jobs in the near future. I've noticed that CZcams's auto-closed-captions have been getting incredibly accurate over the last few years.
I'm a little bit interested in doing steno professionally, but it's not really something I'm actively pursuing. I would probably be more interested in captioning than court reporting. Voice recognition has been getting better, but it falls short when it comes to bad audio, speaker changes, accents, and understanding context to discern difficult words. It works great for single speakers with standard American accents and good quality audio, but that can't be guaranteed when it comes to court reporting or captioning. Maybe in the far future it will be good enough as a replacement, but I do not see it eliminating many jobs in near future. My opinion is that it will only be good enough when we have true AI that can understand meaning like humans can.
I'm sure steno theories could be developed for any language, I'm just not sure if they would necessarily work well. You can find a list of some languages and their various implementations on this page: github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Steno-Layouts-&-Supported-Languages
@@AerickSteno Thanks. I was surprised to find my native language, Finnish, in that list. I wonder if could be useful. For some reason, I've not heard of stenography being used in Finland (except in the parliament but they use hand written stenography).
@@delayed_controlI don't know how Japanese keyboards and input methods work, but Japanese steno does exist and is used in live captioning (see StenoWord, for example). Though, the main issue that the existing systems have is they can only output Hiragana and rely on a second person (or an IME) to convert to Kanji and Katakana. Is this similar to regular Japanese writing?
@@delayed_control I don't think Japanese writing works like steno. They have to first type in kana (or Latin alphabet which the software replaces with kana) and then the software replaces it with kanji or gives a list to choose from. I don't think it's any faster than typing "normally" and may even be a bit slower due to the extra step of choosing the right kanji.
Can't tell if you're genuinely curious about the seemingly arbitrary chords for the missing sounds, but in case you are: Remember that steno uses single keys to represent sounds as well as chords. For single keys it makes sense for the key they're labelled with to stand for the sound they represent. But of course this doesn't work for chords because you have to put many letters together to represent these missing sounds. And with English, you just can't use combinations of 7 or 10 keys (each left and right side bank of keys) to represent all the English consonants in a logical way. It's also important that the placement of the missing sounds make sense relative to each other in the steno order. For example, on the left side of the keyboard, "s" precedes "t" because it is the only consonant that regularly comes before "t" in many English words. You have to not just take these single keys into consideration, but also all the chords that you assign. So even if you come up with a system that has fewer arbitrary missing sound chords, it's not going to work ideally because of phonetics and you won't be able to fit in as many sounds into one chord. If you're wondering why steno was invented in the first place, it's because it's currently the only reliable way of taking down speech verbatim in all circumstances that require it.
I can't find any of these keyboards or anything comparable for sale anywhere. Everything is out of stock. I'm tired of typing at 80WPM. I need 120 - 150!
Yeah, it's really too bad that there are only so many vendors available. You can find a list of supported hardware here: github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Supported-Hardware#commercially-available-hobbyist-machines Currently, the Splitography (the one I use) and TinyMod are available, but they are a little more expensive than the other ones. If you don't mind waiting a bit, the Uni is coming out next year, and shouldn't ever go out of stock (it's getting mass produced thanks to the Kickstarter).
I dont know if this is particularly impressive but I just did one of those online tests and my typing speed with a regular keyboard is around 103 WPM which I know is fast but Im not sure relatively how fast. For background I learned how to type at a very young age because we had a class for it in school starting in first grade and I dont know I think that I just kindof vibed with it and enjoyed the typing pal (service that they were using) so i continued to learn and practice. I also do a lot of writing and research in my spare time. I think that this has contributed to my particularly fast typing speed. Heres where it gets strange, without looking at a keyboard i cant tell you where all of the keys are located. This got me thinking, how am I able to type so fast if I dont know how to type? I have relaized that there are a few strange things about my method. For one when I think the words I think of them as components instead of full words or strings of letters. I also dont have the same typing position that most people do. Where most people set their hands on home row I set my fingers diagonally across the keyboard. By default my left thumb rests on the space. my right thumb is largely unused and rests on the bottom of the keyboard. My left pinky hovers over shift and my left ring, middle and index fingers rest on a s e respectively my right fingers for the most part lay on h j k l. When I type my left thumb handles space as well as the bottom row of keys excluding z x and m, I create shapes with my hands and am able to precisely time the ways that my fingers fall on keys in order to do this. I think that I may have accidentally come up with my own method of stenography.
I am from India and I am a Stenographer (Pitman Shorthand). My steno speed is 120 WPM. But here I have to write steno on steno pad with the help of pen/pencil. Then I have to transcribe it by using QWERTY keyboard. But this process takes a lot of time. For example If I take a Dictation of 1200 words for 10 minutes then I have to read it then transcribe it that takes almost 40 minutes. So I want to learn this steno also. How it's different from Pitman Shorthand? How I find the keyboard you are using?? And how can I learn this?
Written shorthand uses very similar principles to that of machine stenography. It's just a difference of particular rules and the concepts are applied to the various keys instead of writing shapes. If you want to learn steno about yourself, I'd recommend starting with my "Beginners's Guide to Plover" video you can find in the following playlist: czcams.com/video/JsRTTD9k2ME/video.html In that video, I go over some of the keyboards you can use, as well as the various different learn resources there are for stenography. In the playlist, I also have a bunch of other videos teaching the basics of stenography. The keyboard I'm using in this video is a Splitography which you can get from softhruf.love . For a full list of hobbyist keyboards you can buy, check out this page: github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Supported-Hardware . Unfortunately, all of these keyboards ship from the US so they might be a little bit more expensive to buy. I hope this helps!
@@kunal_5harma you can but it can't give accurate results and stenographer is a responsible job if you make a typing mistake that makes whole passage meaning different and a lot of other duties also which a Stenographer has to perform like meeting scheduling, managing official records, legal judgment note taking etc. Google speak to text not give accurate results and an officer or judge or authority doesn't have time to speak again and again to make Google correct. So You can't compare a software with a Stenographer. Stenographer is much better than such kind of softwares.
@@atulkumar1264 no no I know what responsibility a stenographer cum PA has, even I have cleared written and preparing for skill test. I was asking, isn't it better if instead of typing we stenographers just use that software and save time?
I can type 130wpm on a QWERTY keyboard, and have been considering learning steno. After hearing that it took you 20 months to get here, I think I'll choose DVORAK
6 months to 150 with an hour or two of practice everyday. I stopped actively practising two months after and just used steno for chatting, though. If I kept it up, I probably would have reached 200 in less than a year. I've also learned Colemak and Dvorak before but I could never surpass my QWERTY speed of 100 WPM. I think most people who learn alternative layouts share the same experience.
Question: when doing steno, can your output be read by any other program on the computer? I don't think I'd be interested in court reporting or live captioning, but I love typing games and learning new skills. I think it would be fun to try my favorite typing games at 100+ wpm. Is it possible?
I think it's slightly shorter! Steno took me about 3 months to get to the point where all my practice was just passive and I could use it in most cases where I'd normally use a keyboard. I think language learning takes a little bit longer.
@@AerickSteno Are you still using some sort of Linux distro? Also I think how fast you can write with Sterno is really amazing but it's probably hard to get started. Any advice on how to get started?
@@realtimestatic Yep, I use Fedora. The best place to get started is either with my "Beginner's Guide to Plover" video or the learning resources page on the wiki: github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Learning-Stenography czcams.com/video/WxK4AjdKIwU/video.html
There are several ways of disambiguating homophones. Two ways include using different chords or utilizing the asterisk key. For example, "bear" is given PWAEUR (normal long A vowel) while "bear" is given PWAER (alternate long A vowel). A few other examples: "dock" TKOBG "doc" TKO*BG "docks" TKOBGZ "dox" TKOBGS "docs" TKO*BGS
A slightly abridged version of the video from last year. Interested in learning? Watch my 2024 Hobbyist's Guide to Steno: czcams.com/video/rYUmsUx0oSo/video.html
Yes, I am aware of the mistakes I made in trying to live caption this video.
"you can see the keys" -> "you see the keys" (missed a key)
"dictionaries to" -> "dictionary toss" (stacked the last two strokes)
"like this" -> "like system this" (stroked S-PL by accident while fingerspelling)
No, I am not going to redo this video just because of a few mistakes.
Informative regardless :)
Whoo!!! Thank you for documenting your progress and all the information you have provided.
I actually found that even more informative to read how the errors were made and feel it adds more reality to the video rather than thinking I’m horrible because others seem to be able to just do it perfect all the time.
@@haj98 haha, yeah it's hard to achieve really high accuracy at high speed. It's amazing how realtime captioners like Mirabai Knight can do 99.9% accuracy at 225+ WPM.
I think leaving the mistakes actually makes the video contain more information
I just happened to see a video done by "half as interesting" about steno and now this one appeared on youtube. Very interesting. I have no desire to learn but at age 66, I still love learning about new things. Well done.
Saw the same video a couple days ago, and now this video.
I’m not 66 yet, but share interest on learning new stuff.
So you're Mike Old?
My next recommended video is literally that "half as interesting" video.
"Mike young" how ironic
Me too lol
I actually learned how steno works when i read the name of the wind.
The main character was being interviewed, and the interviewer utilized a stenographic system to take notes.
Reducing words to their phonemic constructs for quicker notation is quite genius, honestly.
Supine. Irreverant. Jackdaw. Quartz. Lacquer. Eggoliant.
@@RandoBox
Everyone knows Patrick Rothfuss promised 3 and is only delivering 2 as a troll.
Except we can record audio with a very high quality now...
Videography here is top notch! It looks great and is very very clear, can't wait to get my own steno keyboard!
and it's just a video and split screen screen recording! proof you don't need fancy editing to make a good video
@@unicodefox there's quite a bit of editing in the bottom right pane
@@poolkrooni those are existing overlays lol, it's literally drag and drop
Very interesting video! I use a standard QWERTY Layout and my typing speed peaks at around 160WPM, so I can actually transcribe slowerish speech too, but being at 200 seems like it'd be a lot more comfortable. Very neat!
The pros write ate about 240 WPM I think, with steno.
That's pretty good. I personally find that most of the time I'm limited by the rate at which I think rather than how fast my fingers can type. The real issue is that I have a tendency to get completely wrong words mixed in with what I'm typing because that's how fast I am.
I cap out at 60 wpm when I really try ._.
@@ElektrokardiogrammPractice makes perfect
How dare you break with CZcams tradition and post a video like this without a clickbait title.
Idk how this ended up on my homepage but coolsies.
Yet, you fell for it anyway...
@@rickwilliams967 was just reminded of your idiotic comment.
Who hurt you lol?
Also who taught you to read?
They both did you equally dirty apparently.
THANK YOU! You're the first video I've come across that actually explains steno typing in a way I can sort of understand.
This is, by far, the best video I have seen that explains how steno actually works. Thank you!
i was on jury duty so the whole time the court reporter fascinated me, considering how fast people sometimes spoke
Finally a video about steno that ACTUALLY answers all of my questions
This is really helpful! Before I came across your channel, I knew I wanted to learn steno. But I didn't know how to go about it. Now I learned from this channel about the Splitography and helpful modifications to it! I bought one and looking at your amazing journey, I know for certain I can do this. A proof of concept can be decisive in taking action and reaching our goals. I am very grateful for this channel, thank you!
4:03 lol adding Reimu to the dictionary
The ability to write in Vietnamese is very very handy. My mom could use this. I really like the idea of having a much smaller footprint. I use an ortholinear split keyboard and it does the job for me but I want less wires and it took me a while to adjust so I’m not sure I could practically learn this but I’d give it a try cause I like the idea of having it with small portable pc work.
If you'd like to have your mom use steno, I would recommend using this person's viet system over mine: github.com/user202729/plover_vi
The key shapes are less awkward, there's more potential in their system, and it's easier to install.
@Aerick just found out about a local Vietnamese community here so this is really interesting, thanks for the recommendation
fiiinaly a clear stenography explanation thank you
This is what you tube should be! Brilliant video.
Touché with the hidden reference at 4:10, as they say, if you know you know ⛩
Go, go, gooooooooo!!! Always cheering for you, Aerick! =)
Your intro videos have been a huge help in getting me started. Thanks!
Unfortunately, much of the hardware you discuss is out of production. I would love to see your opinion of solutions like using a Planck keyboard with G20 keycaps and light switches like Gateron clears. When you use this combo, you end up paying a comparable amount to the hardware you discuss on your channel. So I think it's worth looking into.
Keep up the great work!
Yeah, it is a shame that a lot of hobbyist machines are out of stock at moment (there is still the Splitography and TinyMod, at least). The Ecosteno is looking at a restock, however, and the Uni will begin to be mass produced in the new year, so there's a bright future ahead for affordable steno hardware.
I have indeed looked at the Planck, and I even considered getting one last year (I ended up going for the Splitography instead as it was being restocked). It's definitely a solid choice, the Gateron Clear switches are also used in the less expensive version of the TinyMod as well as the Uni.
I actually have been thinking of creating a hardware guide video, and I'm definitely going to mention the Planck. With it going for less than $90 on drop without switches and keycaps, it is certainly very affordable. But I'm not sure how much more I can comment on it as I've not assembled one and I find Gateron Clears too heavy to steno for longer than 10 minutes.
FYI, the EcoSteno is supposed to be in stock within a day or two and is one of the cheaper options at $85. I’d sign up for their mailing list or go to their discord to know when it goes online.
Reminded me when I was during my high school days I had to learn shorthand and I could easily reach at 120 wpm .. Was actually kind of fun and guess not many out there have even heard of this🌝
Amazing teaching skills my friend. Mixed with the visuals and great editing. I am very blown away at your mind young man. Please keep up the amazing work thank you for this video. It means a lot.
If only I could think at 200wpm... Let alone thinking in a programming setting where I have to solve some problem
Very well explained. I still have zero idea how it works, I'm pretty sure it's magic.
I wanna learn this now, seems so fun to do
And here I was trying to figure out how to do Shorthand on a keyboard and never knew about stenography. They really have invented everything
I have been looking into stenography because I find it fascinating. I may take it up at a local college in Chicago. In addition to pursuing work as a court reporter, because I find court proceedings fascinating, I would also want to design software for stenography. I used to work on a Jeopardy archive site, and I got the idea to steno an episode of Jeopardy and be able to automatically upload a transcript to the archive site to have all the clues entered as soon as the episode airs.
This is the only video that made steno make sense
wow, im currently transcribing an interview, and took me half a day, to transcribe a 30 min recording :')))) i wish i know steno
i feel so anxious seeing you transcripting in real time
Had no idea about this. Looks really impressive!
Best Steno video on CZcams. Thank you!
Thanks, I always wondered how this worked.
it looks like decoding compressed data back to raw. Astonishing also perfect to step up your game. Might help keep brain activity high as well.
Amazing stuff Aerick, it's at this point I wonder if I am to try this, what have I got myself in for?! haha
Anyway, your videos are definitely the best resource I've seen for learning and understanding more about the how and why, great stuff!
I really didn't pay attention to explanation but I still watched whole video cause it looks so cool. The editing is very good.
I didn’t realize you learned this in your spare time, I thought this was your profession! Very knowledgeable!How and why did you get started in steno, and what’s your normal profession?
Thank you! I had learned this because I just thought it looked cool and I wanted to type faster (I was 15 at the time). I'm currently in my last year of high school.
@@AerickSteno Soooo... I hope you take this as a compliment, but I thought you were much older, like even a college graduate. I'll be keeping an eye on your channel, you are definitely going places.
By the way, as a practitioner in the field of Digital Forensics, I can tell you that if you get into a profession where there is any amount of typing (that's most of them these days), you'll have an incredible edge on everyone around you if you can type faster. Being able to type reports faster, getting through your emails faster, etc. That's why I started looking into steno is because I was saturating my typing speed (about 80 wpm) with all of things I need to write. I wish they taught this in school along with the keyboarding classes.
@@haj98 Haha, yeah I understand. A lot of people think I'm a lot older than I am.
@@AerickSteno Geez its just hard to think about the fact that people my age are becoming successful on youtube already. I wish you luck in your endeavors.
Great explanation. Great visuals. Clear vocals. THANK YOU.
Wow. You’re in high school? You’re going to have such an edge over your university/college peers in time efficiency. More sleep! Getting through essay assignments/reports would have been much easier as a student if I was able to type close to my thinking speed. Then there was the issue that I had to purposely type slower to avoid hand cramping to sustain working that long.
Ah well. At least now I can change my typing ergonomics in my professional life. So many emails and reports… I just got The Uni keyboard a few days ago. 4 WPM. I hope it doesn’t take me a year to reach my QWERTY typing speed.
Haha, I really hope it does offer me an advantage. Good luck with your Uni!
@@AerickSteno I don't think that my typing speed was ever a bottleneck for anything. Like 99% of the time is spent thinking about *what* to write, not for typing it. Unless maybe if you can't touch type at all and are always searching the key with one finger.
@@Mobin92 Totally understand. It's the same for me, I have to think about what I want to write first and typing fast doesn't really give me an advantage in that regard. But the ergonomic benefit of using steno is really compelling to me. I could be typing at 80 WPM or using steno at 150 WPM, with the former being unsustainable for long periods of times (I usually have to slow down a fair bit if I type for more than 5 minutes).
As I've mentioned, 150 WPM with steno is about 3 strokes per second whereas typing at 80 WPM requires having to press about 7 keys every second in sequence. I also just like being able to type my words out faster so that I can start thinking about what I want to say next without also having to type what I currently want to say. It's a feeling that a lot of people allude to "thinking with your fingers". I think it is something hard to explain without experiencing it.
When I was in my covid-semester, I was typing all day, and I had issues with hand cramping and loss of feeling in my fingers.
The best investment I've made was a fancy angled split keyboard. Now I actually type properly, and my hands don't get cramped as much.
Now I am starting to convince myself that I need yet another keyboard...
@@macattack123mattc3 Ergonomic keyboards were a game changer for me as well. I started off with the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard and am now using a Logitech ERGO K860, which I like much better.
Maybe I will one day make the jump into learning and entirely new layout (Dvorak, Colemak) or typing system altogether (steno, Charachorder)...
Very interesting! I learned to use the Dvorak keyboard about 15 years ago and this video makes me appreciate my ability to use it. Like the steno, you can type "chunks" of words with a lot less finger motion than on a qwerty keyboard.
Thank you for sharing this!
Great video and explanation on how stenography works. I used to do broadcast captioning and trying to explain to people how it works would sometimes confuse them more LOL.
🌴☀️🌴
Yeah I honestly hate having to explain how steno works to people when they see my weird keyboard haha. I have huge respect for broadcast captioners, that's awesome!
@@AerickSteno Thanks. I’ll let you in on a little unknown fact. As a captioner we aim to provide verbatim, but when things get “heated” at times on Live (think sports, weather) we are allowed to paraphrase as long as it does not change the meaning of what’s being said 😄.
TLDR: It's magic
After watching this video I got recommend randomly, I was surprised to see how small your channel is. I expected a 100k+ subscriber channel
This literally blew my mind, what in the world?
wow, great stuff! ty so much , I’ve always wanted to know how this worked!! So cool, had no idea it was like this. I think I have to learn how to now !!🤘
I saw a good explanation once that its better to think of a stenograph as a muscial instrument than a keyboard. An instrument that plays syllables of speech rather than musical notes.
Hi Aerick, how would you compare your current qwerty layout speed to when you hadn't started learning steno? I'm thinking of learning plover steno but am afraid that I might lose my qwerty speed by a lot, especially if I fail at progressing in steno. Any advices?
My QWERTY speed has completely stayed the same since learning steno. Especially if you have separate keyboards for steno and QWERTY, your fingers won't get confused at all. Regular typing and steno are totally different.
Lots of people find that it's just a separate thing. You may need a hot minute to warm up but you won't lose your qwerty.
Absolutely no reason for thinking that you'd forget qwerty after learning steno. You don't forget how to ride a cycle when you ride a bike do you?
@@whyiseverysinglehandletaken2 Well, my dvorak has replaced my qwerty. I can't type without looking at my keys when using qwerty. So on the same keyboard I imagine it could cause conflicts.
I type Chinese(Bopomofo), English(QWERTY), Japanese(Kana Input), Korean(2-set) and Hindi(Inscript) on the same keyboard. Since I rarely get confused when I type, I'd say it's probably safe to learn a different input method (from losing speed)
4:09 Reimu Hakurei jumpscare lol
That is fascinating. I never knew anything about steno before.
So confusing, I've always been curious about court reporters and how they do it, I'm 39 and still can't fully type on a reg keyboard, without looking
I'm a student now at 140 wpm. It's strange how starting off it looked like complete jibberish and now my brain basically sees it as English lol. It's fascinating how the brain works. Muscle memory is also a big one.
I'll be back when I make it as a Stenographer. Good luck, future me.
Wow. Impressive. 👌🏾 Thank you for sharing.
Wowww as someone good at piano who also struggles to write as fast as my thoughts sometimes I think this would be very helpful to me 🙂💭
I think this will reach a million views
You guys are the jazz musicians of the courtroom.
EDIT : 0:48 That's so funny, because I like to do brain surgery in my spare time, as well.
3:50 I found a mistake: "dictionaries TOSS" instead of "dictionaries to..." and it supports my previous feeling of: I don't like it. 😅
Check out my pinned comment, I've already mentioned it there! In any case, I am not a professional live captioner; everything I've shown in this video was from learning it in my spare time.
I've been in school for this for 2.5 years. You need discipline and motivation for this.
The backspaces when the person is still speaking stresses me out lol
stenography: we invented writing to write writing
Outstanding video.
As a programmer i just have to be curious how well it would work for programming
It's certainly doable:
Me writing C with steno: czcams.com/video/fUFjBVekmj8/video.html
LaTeX with steno: czcams.com/video/UYqK5C6iw10/video.html
Paul Firoavanti writing C with steno: czcams.com/video/egReh-6maNw/video.html
(He also has tons of other cool demos for coding with steno in other languages)
Josiah speedrunning vim tutor: czcams.com/video/8-oDPhmpN9g/video.html
Whether it's worth your time learning is a different question. It's a bit like learning vim or emacs; you can't really beat the efficiency, but you have to spend a lot of time learning to get to that point. But in this case, there are tons of ways to optimize programming on a regular QWERTY keyboard that it doesn't make sense to learn steno just to improve your programming.
You can add to your personal dictionary with Plover which would be doable, though I doubt that will be more efficient.
@@maxfuson1760 yeah, realistically I probably write 5% of my code, 95% is autocompleted
Wow, your stenographer skills impressed me. I wonder some day there will be VoiceToText recognition software what will be doing all that hard work for us.😀
"Stenographer" is the name of the person who does stenography (it's actually "stenography skills").
Jokes aside, people have been promising really accurate speech to text and AI systems to replace stenographers. But it's been like that for the last 20 years, and I really doubt stenographers will be replaced any time soon.
The best part? "any word you never even heard before"
JUST TYPE IT AS IT SOUNDS!
I would love to do this but I don't think I could :( Awesome video though, and great job! I always wondered about this!
That was super interesting, and I can imagine it will be very useful for writing essays, emails, and whatever else you might get up to. Are you interested in becoming employed as a stenographer? I wonder if voice-to-text technology will eliminate many of these jobs in the near future. I've noticed that CZcams's auto-closed-captions have been getting incredibly accurate over the last few years.
I'm a little bit interested in doing steno professionally, but it's not really something I'm actively pursuing. I would probably be more interested in captioning than court reporting. Voice recognition has been getting better, but it falls short when it comes to bad audio, speaker changes, accents, and understanding context to discern difficult words. It works great for single speakers with standard American accents and good quality audio, but that can't be guaranteed when it comes to court reporting or captioning. Maybe in the far future it will be good enough as a replacement, but I do not see it eliminating many jobs in near future. My opinion is that it will only be good enough when we have true AI that can understand meaning like humans can.
It's like teaching a whole New language to your hands hahaha. Very interesting
more people should learn about this i feel
This system seems somewhat language specific. Does it work well with all languages or only with some?
I'm sure steno theories could be developed for any language, I'm just not sure if they would necessarily work well.
You can find a list of some languages and their various implementations on this page: github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Steno-Layouts-&-Supported-Languages
@@AerickSteno Thanks. I was surprised to find my native language, Finnish, in that list. I wonder if could be useful. For some reason, I've not heard of stenography being used in Finland (except in the parliament but they use hand written stenography).
I imagine for some languages it would be straight out redundant. For instance Japanese writing works like stenography by default.
@@delayed_controlI don't know how Japanese keyboards and input methods work, but Japanese steno does exist and is used in live captioning (see StenoWord, for example). Though, the main issue that the existing systems have is they can only output Hiragana and rely on a second person (or an IME) to convert to Kanji and Katakana. Is this similar to regular Japanese writing?
@@delayed_control I don't think Japanese writing works like steno. They have to first type in kana (or Latin alphabet which the software replaces with kana) and then the software replaces it with kanji or gives a list to choose from. I don't think it's any faster than typing "normally" and may even be a bit slower due to the extra step of choosing the right kanji.
Great explanation.
I watched a movie where the main character was a stenographer. Unexpected career to see in a movie but it was good.
Ah yes my brain too is stroking at looking at this
"Pre-" is a prefix.
Sorry, I don't follow.
as long as one know their loin
I just have one question to the people inventing stenography: KWR???
Can't tell if you're genuinely curious about the seemingly arbitrary chords for the missing sounds, but in case you are:
Remember that steno uses single keys to represent sounds as well as chords. For single keys it makes sense for the key they're labelled with to stand for the sound they represent. But of course this doesn't work for chords because you have to put many letters together to represent these missing sounds. And with English, you just can't use combinations of 7 or 10 keys (each left and right side bank of keys) to represent all the English consonants in a logical way.
It's also important that the placement of the missing sounds make sense relative to each other in the steno order. For example, on the left side of the keyboard, "s" precedes "t" because it is the only consonant that regularly comes before "t" in many English words. You have to not just take these single keys into consideration, but also all the chords that you assign. So even if you come up with a system that has fewer arbitrary missing sound chords, it's not going to work ideally because of phonetics and you won't be able to fit in as many sounds into one chord.
If you're wondering why steno was invented in the first place, it's because it's currently the only reliable way of taking down speech verbatim in all circumstances that require it.
I can't find any of these keyboards or anything comparable for sale anywhere. Everything is out of stock.
I'm tired of typing at 80WPM. I need 120 - 150!
Yeah, it's really too bad that there are only so many vendors available. You can find a list of supported hardware here:
github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Supported-Hardware#commercially-available-hobbyist-machines
Currently, the Splitography (the one I use) and TinyMod are available, but they are a little more expensive than the other ones.
If you don't mind waiting a bit, the Uni is coming out next year, and shouldn't ever go out of stock (it's getting mass produced thanks to the Kickstarter).
I’d get on EcoSteno’s mailing list or discord. Is supposed to have another batch out in a day or two and with 5x the stock of the last batch.
Awesome video! 👍
it can write vietnamese??? damn i need to learn this
Well I'm having a *stroke* for sure
I dont understand this at all 😂
It’s like socks for me. I don’t get it
The aliens are living among us.
Holy crap imagine someone learning this for online gaming :O
Just for comparison, what is your typing speed on a normal QWERY keyboard?
100 WPM or so.
Very interesting to use this as pc keyboard 💯👍👍👍
I dont know if this is particularly impressive but I just did one of those online tests and my typing speed with a regular keyboard is around 103 WPM which I know is fast but Im not sure relatively how fast. For background I learned how to type at a very young age because we had a class for it in school starting in first grade and I dont know I think that I just kindof vibed with it and enjoyed the typing pal (service that they were using) so i continued to learn and practice. I also do a lot of writing and research in my spare time. I think that this has contributed to my particularly fast typing speed. Heres where it gets strange, without looking at a keyboard i cant tell you where all of the keys are located. This got me thinking, how am I able to type so fast if I dont know how to type? I have relaized that there are a few strange things about my method. For one when I think the words I think of them as components instead of full words or strings of letters. I also dont have the same typing position that most people do. Where most people set their hands on home row I set my fingers diagonally across the keyboard. By default my left thumb rests on the space. my right thumb is largely unused and rests on the bottom of the keyboard. My left pinky hovers over shift and my left ring, middle and index fingers rest on a s e respectively my right fingers for the most part lay on h j k l. When I type my left thumb handles space as well as the bottom row of keys excluding z x and m, I create shapes with my hands and am able to precisely time the ways that my fingers fall on keys in order to do this. I think that I may have accidentally come up with my own method of stenography.
I am from India and I am a Stenographer (Pitman Shorthand). My steno speed is 120 WPM. But here I have to write steno on steno pad with the help of pen/pencil. Then I have to transcribe it by using QWERTY keyboard.
But this process takes a lot of time. For example If I take a Dictation of 1200 words for 10 minutes then I have to read it then transcribe it that takes almost 40 minutes. So I want to learn this steno also. How it's different from Pitman Shorthand? How I find the keyboard you are using?? And how can I learn this?
Written shorthand uses very similar principles to that of machine stenography. It's just a difference of particular rules and the concepts are applied to the various keys instead of writing shapes. If you want to learn steno about yourself, I'd recommend starting with my "Beginners's Guide to Plover" video you can find in the following playlist: czcams.com/video/JsRTTD9k2ME/video.html
In that video, I go over some of the keyboards you can use, as well as the various different learn resources there are for stenography. In the playlist, I also have a bunch of other videos teaching the basics of stenography.
The keyboard I'm using in this video is a Splitography which you can get from softhruf.love . For a full list of hobbyist keyboards you can buy, check out this page: github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Supported-Hardware . Unfortunately, all of these keyboards ship from the US so they might be a little bit more expensive to buy.
I hope this helps!
@@AerickSteno Thankyou Very Much dude.
It helps me a lot. I am going to start my preparation and upgrade my steno with the help of your videos.
@@atulkumar1264 can't we use Google speak to text ?
@@kunal_5harma you can but it can't give accurate results and stenographer is a responsible job if you make a typing mistake that makes whole passage meaning different and a lot of other duties also which a Stenographer has to perform like meeting scheduling, managing official records, legal judgment note taking etc. Google speak to text not give accurate results and an officer or judge or authority doesn't have time to speak again and again to make Google correct. So You can't compare a software with a Stenographer.
Stenographer is much better than such kind of softwares.
@@atulkumar1264 no no I know what responsibility a stenographer cum PA has, even I have cleared written and preparing for skill test.
I was asking, isn't it better if instead of typing we stenographers just use that software and save time?
I can type 130wpm on a QWERTY keyboard, and have been considering learning steno. After hearing that it took you 20 months to get here, I think I'll choose DVORAK
6 months to 150 with an hour or two of practice everyday. I stopped actively practising two months after and just used steno for chatting, though. If I kept it up, I probably would have reached 200 in less than a year.
I've also learned Colemak and Dvorak before but I could never surpass my QWERTY speed of 100 WPM. I think most people who learn alternative layouts share the same experience.
Question: when doing steno, can your output be read by any other program on the computer? I don't think I'd be interested in court reporting or live captioning, but I love typing games and learning new skills. I think it would be fun to try my favorite typing games at 100+ wpm. Is it possible?
Yep! Plover, the steno software I'm using, just emulates regular key presses so you can use steno anywhere you would normally use a regular keyboard.
That's so cool, but i guess the time to learn it worth the time to learn a new language.
I think it's slightly shorter! Steno took me about 3 months to get to the point where all my practice was just passive and I could use it in most cases where I'd normally use a keyboard. I think language learning takes a little bit longer.
next video: stenographer vs. freestyle rappers
This is awesome
Yo are you a KDE user because I’ve seen you use Kate and the editor for the words in your dictionary looked like a Qt program
Used to! I still like to use Kate. Plover's GUI (which is the steno input tool I use) is actually written with QT.
@@AerickSteno Are you still using some sort of Linux distro? Also I think how fast you can write with Sterno is really amazing but it's probably hard to get started. Any advice on how to get started?
@@realtimestatic Yep, I use Fedora.
The best place to get started is either with my "Beginner's Guide to Plover" video or the learning resources page on the wiki:
github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Learning-Stenography
czcams.com/video/WxK4AjdKIwU/video.html
i bet steno is good for writing books
Anyone noticed the "shortcut" for y-globulin at 3:59? Line 47184 (probably, it gets blurry) Lol
Phraeut = plate
God dammit I had this idea, or so I thought, but my brain far too smooth to actually do it lmao
Imagine the sorted of combining stenography and vim.
+1 from a Steno.
Fascinating!!!
Someday I will become a godspeed like that
what about words that are spelled differently but have the same pronounciation?
There are several ways of disambiguating homophones. Two ways include using different chords or utilizing the asterisk key. For example, "bear" is given PWAEUR (normal long A vowel) while "bear" is given PWAER (alternate long A vowel).
A few other examples:
"dock" TKOBG
"doc" TKO*BG
"docks" TKOBGZ
"dox" TKOBGS
"docs" TKO*BGS
What do you think about it?