so ive been licensed for about 8 months now, tech class, and ive been reading about CW and it honestly sounds really appealing to me for some reason. i know its not required anymore but theres something about it that just seems cool and i want to learn it. problem is i have no idea where to even begin. like do i just memorize the dots and dashes on a chart or is that the wrong approach? ive seen some people mention something called the koch method and something else about not learning it visually at all, just by sound? i dont really understand what that means practically. i just want to get to a point where i can have a basic QSO eventually, nothing crazy. any advice on how to actually start would be appreciated, or just what worked for you personally

ok so first thing, dont learn it from a chart. seriously that will slow you down so much in the long run because you end up counting dits and dahs in your head and you never get fast enough to actually copy anything in real time. the goal is to hear a letter and just know it the same way you hear a word in english and just understand it without spelling it out.

the koch method is basically where you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you drill those until you can copy them reliably, then you add one more character, then another. the trick is always at full speed even when youre a beginner. the spacing between characters is stretched out (farnsworth timing) so you have time to think but the actual characters themselves sound like real morse. look up the LCWO website, its free and its basically designed around this approach. i used it and got to around 15wpm usable copy in maybe 4 or 5 months of about 20 minutes a day, which isnt amazing but its real progress

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been at it for a couple months now. i use the morse code ninja youtube channel and also an app called morse mania on my phone. the youtube guy does a ton of drills, like he has videos that are just common words over and over, two letter words three letter words etc, and it helps a lot more than i expected. the app is good for when im just sitting around waiting for something. still pretty slow, maybe copying 8-10wpm on a good day but i can tell its starting to click more. the hardest part for me was the letters that sound kinda similar like b d and 6, i keep mixing those up