Hi crazyshell, welcome to ActoGuitar!

To learn notes, you may want to check out this ActoGuitar article with video demonstrations on each natural note in the first position of the fretboard. Once you have understand that, understanding flats and sharps will be much easier.

Yeah, this can be a frightening concept to begin with, I Use a couple of methods to help me,

Firstly, remembering E A D G B E is easy, so i learnt the notes across the third fret
___A
GCF_DG (The A is on the second fret)

Then the fith fret ADGCEA (You probably know most of them anyway)

I continued this on each of the marked frets allong the fretboard (Forget about the ninth fret, learn all the tenth frets instead) DGCFAD

This I find helps because when you arn't sure of a note, there is always one nearby to use as reference.

The second method I use is good for when you need to locate a note on yuour fretboard.

Since there are 7 natural notes, I assign a note for each day of the week, so, for example monday is A.

On a monday, any time I pick up my guitar, or any time I feel I have nothing to do etc... I practice playing all the A's on the fretboard

---------------5-----------------------
-----------10---10--------------------
---------2----------2-----------------
-------7--------------7---------------
----0-------------------0-------------
-5------------------------5-----------

---------------------17-----------------
-----------------22-----22----------------
-------------14------------14-------------
---------19-------------------19----------
-----12---------------------------12------
-17-----------------------------------17--

During that day, you will find that you know all the A notes to heart easily, of course, doing it with a different note each day (B on tuesday etc..) By next week, you will most likely have to lern them all again ( and again and again) Eventually (sooner than you would expect) you will know instinctivly the right notes to play on each day, and you'll be able to locate any note on the fretboard. As long as you keep practicing what I have just told you, it should eventually become habbit each day.

Anyway, belive me these methods realy work and have helped me immensely.

oh yeah, and, you dont need to learn where the flats and sharps are, once you know the natural notes, flats and sharps will be obvious to you.

one last thing, don't expect to be able to learn all the notes quickly and easily, take your time, and don't worry about it, and it will come to you slowly. The most important thing is to have fun or it'll become tedious very quickly and you'll give up.

Wow, that was a lot of typing Hope it helps anyway

Any other questions/problems, just ask

hi thanks it is hard to take in but i think its beginning to make sense

can u answer this please

when i learn the first positions on every string, you can then work out every note on the fretboard from that?

do most guitarists find out the notes they want using that method or do they learn them off by heart? (as wonderbody said learn the notes on 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10 fret)?

thanks a lot.
never looked at learning theory before, but its getting useful (now can tune guitar without tuner lol)

Yeah, check out the actolesson explaining how here