Which Morse code letters to learn first, and why order matters
Learn a few short, common letters that sound nothing alike first, such as E, T and A, then add two or three at a time, choosing letters that let you make real words early and keeping look-alikes like S and H well apart. Alphabetical order is the weakest choice. Order matters because the letters you learn side by side are the ones you will confuse, and the letters you learn first should be the ones you will hear most.
There is no single correct order, but there are clear rules for a good one. Here are four common approaches, what each gets right and wrong, and one complete order that follows the rules.
Four orders compared
Alphabetical. A, B, C, D and on to Z is the order of the chart, not of the ear. It has nothing to do with how letters sound or how often they turn up, so it brings long, rarer letters like J, .---, into the first half and leaves S and T, two of the most common letters in English, until 19th and 20th. It also sets look-alikes next to each other: U, ..-, and V, ...-, arrive one after the other, and B, -..., and D, -.., two apart. Worst of all, it invites you to recite the alphabet to find a letter, which is a lookup, and lookups are what you are trying to avoid.
Shortest first. E and T, then I, A, N and M, then the eight three-element letters, then the twelve with four. The early weeks are easy, and the order follows the shape of the Morse code tree. The catch is that letters of the same length are the ones that sound most alike. A, .-, and N, -., are mirror images learned together, and the whole family of short letters arrives at once. And because the order is sorted by the number of elements, it quietly trains you to count them.
By frequency. The most common English letters first: roughly E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, though the exact order depends on which text you count. This gets you words early and spends your first weeks on the letters you will meet most often. It also bunches look-alikes: I, S and H all land in the first eight, with A and N close by.
Koch-style. Two characters at full speed, then one more each time you copy about 90 percent of them correctly. What it gets right is the speed and the measured pace; the method itself does not fix the order. The classic order used with it starts with K and M, which make no English words, so the first sessions are random strings rather than words. The Koch method, explained covers it in full.
The rules a good order follows
Put those four side by side and the rules fall out of them.
1. Contrast first. Letters learned together should sound unlike each other, so your ear has to tell them apart by their whole shape. Keep look-alikes at least a step apart:
| Look-alikes | Codes | What separates them |
|---|---|---|
| I, S, H, 5 | .. ... .... ..... |
Only the number of dits |
| A, N | .- -. |
The same two elements, reversed |
| U, V | ..- ...- |
One more dit before the dah |
| D, B | -.. -... |
One more dit after the dah |
| M, O | -- --- |
One more dah |
Learn one of each pair until it is solid, then bring in the other and practice the two side by side. Morse letters that sound alike has drills for each family.
2. Words early. Random letters are hard to stay with. Real words give you something to send and recognize, and they teach the gap between letters, which no single letter can. With just E, T and A you can already make AT, ATE, EAT and TEA.
3. Common before rare. E is one dit and T one dah because they are the most common letters in English. Learning the common letters first means most of the Morse you hear early on is made of letters you know. Why E is one dit explains how the code follows frequency.
4. Two or three at a time. Add a handful of letters, practice until you copy or send them reliably, then add more. About 90 percent correct is a fair bar for moving on.
5. Letters, then figures, then the rest. The figures follow one simple pattern and come quickly once your ear is trained. Punctuation and prosigns come last because you will use them least.
One order that follows the rules
Here is a complete order built on those rules. You can follow it with a pencil and any source of Morse. The words in the last column are only examples of what each step lets you make.
| Step | New characters | Words you can already make |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | E T A | AT, ATE, EAT, TEA |
| 2 | N I | TEN, TIN, NINE, ANTENNA |
| 3 | S O | SEA, NOTE, STONE, SEASON |
| 4 | H R | THE, HER, RAIN, EARTH |
| 5 | D L | OLD, LAND, DEAL, HELLO |
| 6 | U C | SUN, CUT, SOUND, CLOUD |
| 7 | M W | MOON, WATER, WORLD |
| 8 | F G | GIFT, FLAG, FROG |
| 9 | Y P | YES, PAPER, HAPPY |
| 10 | B K | BOOK, BAKE, BLACK |
| 11 | V X | SIX, FOX, FIVE |
| 12 | Q J Z | QUIZ, JUMP, JAZZ |
Then come the figures (1 2 3, then 4 5 6, then 7 8, then 9 0), the everyday punctuation (period, comma and question mark, then slash, apostrophe and exclamation mark), and the prosigns AR and BT, then SK and the error signal, HH.
Look at where the look-alikes fall. I, S and H arrive in steps 2, 3 and 4, and 5 waits for the figures. A and N, M and O, U and V, D and B are each at least one step apart. Every step adds two or three characters, and you send real words from step 1, HELLO at step 5 and WORLD at step 7.
This is the order of the course in Dot & Dash, where each step is a chapter. A chapter’s lesson takes two or three minutes: you meet the new letters by their rhythm, key them, then key real words made with them, and the next chapter opens once you key the last chapter’s letters reliably. The course is keying first; copying by ear is a drill in Practice.
Does the order still matter later?
Less than you might think, and more than you would like. Once you know every letter, the order you learned them in stops mattering for the letters themselves. What lingers is anything you learned too close to its look-alike. If you still hesitate between U and V, or between B, -..., and 6, -...., that pair deserves a few minutes of side by side practice every day until the hesitation goes.
The same rules help when you go back over old ground: review the letters you miss most, keep look-alike pairs in the same session once both are solid, and practice words rather than single letters whenever you can.
Questions
Should I learn E and T first?
They are a natural start: one dit and one dah, the shortest codes and the most common letters in English. Add A and you can already make words.
Is it bad to learn Morse in alphabetical order?
It works in the end, but it is the weakest order. It ignores how letters sound and how often they appear, puts look-alikes such as U and V next to each other, and encourages reciting the alphabet to find a letter.
When should I learn the numbers?
After the letters. The figures follow one simple pattern of five elements each, so they come quickly once your ear is used to the letters: 1 to 5 start with dits, 6 to 0 with dahs.
How many new letters should I learn at a time?
Two or three, then practice until you copy or send them reliably before adding more. Adding letters faster than that tends to leave the new ones shaky.