Shorthand is considered by many as a very difficult skill to learn. It is effectively like learning a foreign language from scratch. Teeline boasts itself as the most effective shorthand system. It has an alphabet which consists of one stroke or squiggle for each letter. When drawing a Teeline outline, a particular word is stripped of its vowels and the strokes that represent the consonants are drawn together continuously. For instance, the word manager becomes mngr, and then the outline is drawn. When there is an outline which could be interpreted to be two or three different words, a vowel indicator is drawn alongside the outline to give more of an indication of the correct word. In any case, the word can often be identified easily because of the context of the sentence which is being read back. The system also has special outlines and word groupings, which makes taking notes quicker and easier. Good shorthand users can write between 80 and 120 words per minute. The system is especially used by journalists, secretaries, and those working in PR.
