Tarot for Beginners

Where should a beginner start with tarot?

A beginner should start with the structure of the deck: once you know how the 78 cards are grouped and what each group is about, the individual meanings become far easier to learn. Tarot is not memorised like a list for an exam. It is learned like a language: first the alphabet, then the words, and only then whole sentences.

Here is the alphabet. The Major Arcana are 22 cards, from the Fool to the World, and they describe the big lessons of a life. The 56 cards of the Minor Arcana fall into four suits: Cups for feelings, Pentacles for work and money, Swords for thoughts, Wands for drive and action. Each suit holds ten numbered cards, Ace to Ten, and four court cards.

A beginner needs very little: a deck with clear pictures, a notebook and ten minutes a day. You don’t need a special gift, a ritual or a deck that someone gave you. Tarot does not announce the future and does not read anyone’s mind; it helps you see a situation from a different angle. Knowing that limit from the start keeps your first readings healthy.

Keep your first spreads small: drawing one card each morning prepares you to read three cards comfortably within a few weeks.

A four-week plan for learning tarot

1. Choose a deck with readable pictures

Begin with a deck in the Rider–Waite–Smith tradition. In it, every card, the numbered ones included, shows a scene: in the Five of Cups a cloaked figure stands over spilled cups, in the Three of Wands someone looks out to sea. The scene is what makes a meaning stick. Decks whose numbered cards show only rows of symbols are easier once the basics are in place.

2. Sort the deck in your first week

Without looking up any meanings, split the cards into five piles: the Major Arcana and the four suits. Notice the colours and moods of each pile; the Cups are full of water and soft faces, the Swords of grey skies and tension. Then lay the Majors out in order and read the story known as the Fool’s Journey: the 22 cards read like one person growing up through a life.

3. Draw one card every morning

Shuffle, ask “What should I pay attention to today?” and draw one card. Write down its name, the first detail you notice and the feeling it raises. In the evening, note how the day resembled the card. This habit has a name, the Single Card Spread, and it is the best teacher tarot has.

4. Read the meaning after the picture

Before opening a book or a card page, spend one minute with the card. What is the figure doing, where is it looking, what is in its hands? Then read the traditional meaning and compare it with what you saw. Once you notice that the four objects on the Magician’s table are the symbols of the four suits, you will never forget the card.

5. Move to three cards after the second week

When single cards start to feel familiar, try the Three Card Spread: past, present and future. Three cards are the simplest way to learn how cards talk to each other. Read each card in its own position first, then build one story across the three.

6. Learn the suits through their numbers

Learn the Minor Arcana as four suits and ten numbers, not as 56 separate cards. An Ace is a beginning, a Five a strain, a Ten the end of a cycle. If you learned the Ace of Cups as a feeling being born, you can guess that the Ace of Swords is an idea being born. Pairing number and suit cuts the memory work in half.

7. Keep the reading journal going

For every reading, write the date, the question, the cards and a one-sentence summary. At the end of the month, read the journal from the start. Which cards came up often, and which still feel like strangers? The strangers are next month’s study list.

Example: a first month in a reading journal

Week one. On Monday you draw the Empress. Your note says: “Sitting in a field of wheat, soft cushions, a calm, full feeling.” That evening you realise you spent the day looking after other people and forgot to eat lunch. When you read the card page, you see abundance and nurture, and you notice the card also asks whether the care you give reaches you too.

Week two. Swords keep turning up, four mornings out of seven. A pattern appears in the journal: your mind is stuck on a difficult email you have not answered. You now know the suit is about thoughts, not because a book said so but because of your own week.

Week three. You try your first three-card spread: “How can I settle into my new flat?” The Six of Swords in the past, the Page of Cups in the present, the Ten of Cups in the future. The story is simple: you left a hard time behind, you are curious and a little shy in the new place, and the way forward is to make it a home by inviting people in.

Week four. You reread the month and see that Pentacles still feel cold to you. Next month’s plan writes itself: take one Pentacles card out each day and study its picture.

Mistakes beginners make with tarot

• Memorising 78 meanings in a week. Crammed meanings fade fast. Learn the structure and the meanings settle on top of it.
• Jumping straight to big spreads. Reading ten cards needs the skills of reading one and three. Skipping the order wears you out.
• Sorting cards into good and bad. Death describes an ending and a transformation, not a physical death. Every card has a light side and a shadow.
• Asking the same question again and again. If you dislike an answer, change the question or wait a few days. A new draw gives a messier picture, not a clearer one.
• Putting the book before the picture. Card pages are valuable while you learn, but make looking at the image your first habit. Intuition feeds on the details you see.
• Treating intuition as infallible. The first feeling a card raises is worth noting, but it is not a forecast. Weigh it against the card’s meaning and the real conditions of your question.

Keep practising

After four weeks you should have two habits: a morning card and a journal. Keep them for another month and give each week to one suit. When you finish a suit, lay its cards out from Ace to Ten and say out loud what story the numbers tell.

On days without your deck, open the Daily Tarot Card in the Larisa app: when your card is revealed, look at the picture and write a line yourself before reading the interpretation. Then compare your note with it.

Your tarot birth card, worked out from your date of birth, is a pleasant way to meet the Major Arcana from a personal angle. If you want a small ritual before using a new deck, see cleansing a tarot deck, and for ways to mix the cards, shuffling tarot cards.

The next step is the reading itself: how to read tarot cards walks through reading cards together in a spread. If one of your first questions has a yes or no shape, see yes or no tarot first. And when the Fool turns up as your card of the day, smile: it is the first card of the journey.