so i got my technician a few months ago and ive been reading that learning CW is worth it even if its not required anymore. i tried a few youtube videos and some website thing but honestly i cant tell if im doing it right or just memorizing shapes in my head. like when i hear dit dah i think A but then when im actually listening to a real QSO i just hear noise and cant make out anything. is there a specific order i should learn the letters or does it matter. also someone mentioned koch method to me at the club meeting but i dont really understand how it works differently from just drilling the alphabet over and over. any advice appreciated, im not in a hurry just want to actually get somewhere with this eventually

yeah the Koch method is honestly the way to go, the idea is you start with just 2 characters at full speed — like 20wpm — instead of learning everything slow and then having to speed up later. your brain learns the sound as a whole thing instead of counting dits and dahs which is the trap most people fall into. i spent about 6 months counting and then had to basically unlearn all of it. LCWO dot net is free and walks you through Koch pretty well, just do like 10-15 minutes a day and dont skip ahead even when it feels slow. the jump from copy practice to actual QSOs is still rough but once you can do 10-15 words a minute solid you can at least chase the slower CW guys on 40m. patience is the main thing, theres no shortcut that actually works

i was in the same spot last year, what helped me was just putting on W1AW code practice on shortwave in the evenings even when i couldnt copy anything. after a few weeks stuff started jumping out at me, like id suddenly catch a callsign or a 73 at the end. also there are some apps like Morse Mania or Ham Morse that are decent for drilling on your phone when youre waiting around somewhere. dont worry too much about the method at first honestly just getting your ears used to hearing it matters a lot