so ive been licensed for about a year now mostly just doing voice on 2m and some HF but i keep hearing people talk about CW and how its supposedly way better for weak signal stuff and dx and whatever. i got curious and figured id try learning it but i honestly have no idea where to begin. like do people just memorize the dots and dashes on a chart or is there some better way. i downloaded a couple apps and they all seem different and im not sure which approach is actually worth doing. one of my elmers told me to just listen to a lot of it and my brain would figure it out eventually but that seems like it would take forever. is there like a standard method most people use or is it just whatever works for you

okay so the chart thing, dont do that, seriously it'll slow you down and you end up counting in your head every time which is a really hard habit to break later. the method most people swear by now is Koch method which basically starts you at a fast speed right away, like 15-20wpm character speed, but only two characters at a time until you can copy them reliably and then you add one more. the idea is your brain learns the sound as a whole thing instead of dit-dah-dah means M or whatever. LCWO dot net is free and does Koch training, i used that for the first few months and it actually works. G4FON also has a good trainer if you want something on your desktop. the other thing people mention is Farnsworth timing where the characters are sent fast but the spaces between them are longer so you have time to think, and then you gradually shrink the gaps as you get better. honestly just pick one method and stick with it for a few weeks before deciding it isnt working, cause thats where most people give up too early

im kind of in the same boat as you, been at it for maybe three months now. i use the morse code ninja videos on youtube and they really helped me get the letters down, he does these word lists at different speeds and it starts to feel more natural after a while. the app i use day to day is called morse mania i think, its pretty basic but i do like ten minutes on my lunch break and it adds up. honestly the hardest part for me was not looking at charts and just trusting that id recognize the sound eventually, feels weird at first but your elmer is kind of right that listening helps even if its passive. i still cant copy real qso's without struggling but letters and short words are getting there