I saw some videos and still can’t understand, a lady just type like 5 buttons ans a whole phrase comes out on the screen. Also doesnt make sense at all what I see from the stenographer screen, it is like random letters no in the same line.
EDIT: Im impressed by how complex and interesting stenography is! Thank you for the replies and also thank you very much for the Awards! 🙂
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Don’t date a certified stenographer: they have a wicked memory, they spoil all your best stories by remembering how it actually happened, and they know how to mock your verbal discrepancies, which when they do it to your friends can either be sidesplittingly funny think Rich Little, or make the entire table you’re eating at fall into a dead silence as you desperately try to change the subject.
Stenographers use as specially-made machine and keyboard. The left side keys are the beginning consonant sounds of the word or syllable, the bottom four “thumb” keys are for vowel sounds, and the right-hand keys are the end consonant sounds. It looks like [this](http://qwertysteno.com/Images/steno-keyboard1.gif), although the keys are blank.
Unlike a regular keyboard, a steno machine allows the user to stroke multiple keys at one time, like a chord when playing the piano. That’s why we call it “writing” instead of typing. And things are generally stroked phonetically. So KAT for cat, etc. You’ll notice there aren’t enough keys for all the letters, so that means that we stroke multiple keys together to indicate other letters/sounds. For instance the H and R keys on the left hand pressed together equal the “L”. So if I was writing “laugh”, I would stroke HRAF — L A F (phonetically).
We combine that with shorthand … good ole shortening of words and phrases. So if I stroke LAIRJ – my computer with specialized software will translate that as “ladies and gentlemen of the jury”. If I write “P-PD out comes “preponderance of the evidence.” Court reporters learn thousands of these briefs.
Combine the shorthand with being able to stroke entire words or syllables at one time and stenographers become certified at 225 words per minute. Many can write at over 300 words per minute in short bursts. Learning to do this is hella hard — which is why court reporters are paid very well.
I’m a court reporting student at the 200wpm speed class in California 🙂
Yes you can type wayyy faster by using a stenography machine. Imagine hitting a bunch of keys for “ladies and gentlemen of the jury” 6 words in less than a second. That’s how we end up typing so fast but then there’s a group of us that type out every single word even at 200wpm.
Stenographer checking in. A lot of people have answered already, but I’ll chime in that I’ve gotten to a point where it’s mainly muscle memory. I can zone out during work and still hear and take everything down (as long as it’s a regular job and not a room of 6 attorneys arguing at once). The key combinations make everything efficient. There are things called briefs which are just combinations of letters that can translate to full phrases. Like LAIJ is “ladies and gentlemen”. Everything is written to be as fast as possible.
These was a previous reddit post and video which explains this. It’s a great watch.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9l6mg3/this_is_how_court_stenographers_type_so_fast_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9l6mg3/this_is_how_court_stenographers_type_so_fast_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I am an attorney and observe court reporters all the time, and i have asked them to explain it to me. The first important thing to realize is that they don’t type letters. They type phonetically–steno shorthand is basically a syllabary, so each keystroke is essentially one syllable. So they type it phonetically and then go back through later and convert it to English words. They also have shortcuts saved for commonly used phrases.
[According to this](https://youtu.be/rKMBZ16o048?t=22), to graduate a stenography class you have to type 250 WPM with at the least 96% accuracy. It gives a *very* simplified rundown on how it works. Great question op, I’ve wondered that myself but never looked it up.
There seems to be a lot of arguments about whether a steno machine is *really* faster than a regular keyboard.
Here are a couple of facts:
1. Professional typists average between 65 and 75 words per minute. The record is 216 (in 1946!), and the fastest current typist reached 212, using a Dvorak simplified keyboard.
2. To become licensed as a court reporter, you have to reach 180, 200, and 225 words per minute in three different categories. It’s not uncommon for experienced court reporters to reach 300, and the official record for American English is 375. For comparison, the average person *speaks* between 125 and 150 words per minute.
Yes, it’s much faster. How? They have keys for several letters, but they don’t usually hit just one letter at a time. They’ll hit several at a time, and the combination could mean a letter, a common word, or even a punctuation mark. It doesn’t take any more time to hit several keys at once, and by inventing their own shortcuts for common words and phrases, they can save a lot of time.
The keyboard on a shorthand machine uses only a few letters from our alphabet. Depending on the “language” taught, combinations of letters can form words, sentences, punctuation, and even whole paragraphs. Because the stenographer is “writing” as the speaker is speaking, it would be impossible on a traditional keyboard.
The keys on the left hand make up prefixes and keys on the right are word endings. Using technology today makes the process much simpler because you can create your own dictionary so rather than writing, “Hi, How are you today?” as it is being said one could write, “STPH-, STPH-, STPH-“. Does that help or make it worse?
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