so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general class) and ive always been curious about CW but honestly have no idea where to start. i tried one of those apps that plays beeps at you but i couldnt tell any of the letters apart after like 20 minutes and just gave up. is there a better way to go about this or am i just not cut out for it. i keep hearing people say learn the sound not the dots and dashes but i dont even know what that means practically speaking. like how do you actually practice, do you sit at a table with headphones or what

the thing that finally clicked for me was the Koch method, basically you start with just 2 characters at a fairly fast speed like 15-20wpm character speed and you dont move on until you can copy them at like 90% accuracy. the idea is your brain learns the rhythm and sound of each letter as a whole chunk instead of counting dits and dahs one at a time. if you count dits and dahs you will always be slow and it never really becomes automatic.

LC Wone is what a lot of people use, theres also the LCWO website which is free and does the same thing in a browser. i did about 15-20 minutes a day for a few months and went from zero to being able to ragchew slowly on the air. the big thing is consistency, 15 min every single day beats 2 hours on the weekend by a lot. your brain needs that repetition over time not just volume all at once.

also dont worry about sending at first, just focus on receiving until youre comfortable. lots of people get hung up on the key too early

honestly same boat as you not too long ago. what helped me was just listening to actual QSOs on the air even when i couldnt copy anything, just kind of having it on in the background while doing other stuff. probably not the most scientific approach lol but i felt like it helped me get used to the rhythm of it before i could even decode individual letters. i use an app called Morse Mania on my phone and just do it while commuting or whatever. im still pretty slow maybe 8-10wpm on a good day but its way better than nothing and its actually kinda fun once something starts clicking