How I Added My Language to Monkeytype and Left A Small Mark

Do you spend a lot of time improving your speed typing? Here is how I added a mark on my favorite typing platform.

I’m a big fan of typing on my keyboard which led me to discover monkeytype which is my favorite speed typing test platform.

I used to learn touch typing on keybr and 10fastfingers. After mastering that skill on these platforms, I discovered Monkeytype, where I could make my little contribution.

After spending a lot of time on that website, I realized I could contribute by adding my language. I quickly tried to figure out how I could contribute to this project by checking their documentations on their github repository.

Have you ever thought about adding your language which might not exist to Monkeytype ? Here is how.

Adding a new language is very simple - you just add a JSON file with a specific structure named as your language and include it in the _list.json file.

Before that, we need to fork the monkeytype repository.

Then, create a new JSON file in ./frontend/static/languages/, named as the language name and the number of words, e.g kyrgyz_1k.json. If there are less than 1000 words, simply add the language name, e.g kyrgyz.json.

kyrgyz.json

{
	"name": "kyrgyz",
	"rightToLeft": false,
	"ligatures": false,
	"bcp47": "ky-KY",
	"words": [
		"word",
		...
	]
}

In addition to this, you have to add your language to the _groups.json and _list.json files in the same directory like so:

{
  "name": "kyrgyz",
  "languages": ["kyrgyz", "kyrgyz_1k"]
}

The languages field is the list of files that you have created for your language (without the .json file extension). Make sure to add all your files if you have created multiple word lists of differing lengths in the same language.

Add your language lists to the _list.json file like so:

,"spanish"
,"spanish_1k"
,"kyrgyz" // your language

Then I commit the changes and create a pull request to the official monkeytype repository and wait for an approval.

Just click the contribute button

After the pull request gets merged new language is available on the website.

Make sure your contribution follows the language guidelines - Language Guidelines

More info on how to contribute - Language Contribution

Doing all of that is not a big deal, but I wanted my language to be on this platform where I spend time whenever I wait for something loading.

Here is my profile on monkeytype if you’re interested.