so ive been at this for about 8 months now, started at 5wpm with the Koch method and honestly the first stretch up to around 10-11wpm felt pretty natural. did my daily sessions, used lcwo.net, things were moving along. but somewhere around 12-13wpm things just kind of... stopped. i can copy most letters fine in isolation but when actual words come through at 15+ i just fall apart trying to decode letter by letter instead of hearing the whole word as a sound.

i know the advice is always "just listen more" and "stop counting dits" but its easier said than done when your brain wants to translate every single element. been doing this about 30 min a day, sometimes more on weekends. i really want to get to 20wpm eventually, i have no idea if thats a realistic goal for someone who isnt naturally musical or whatever. anybody been through this and actually come out the other side?

yeah that 12-13 wall is real and almost everybody hits it, you're not imagining things. what worked for me was cranking the character speed way up — like 25 or even 30wpm character speed — while keeping the overall word rate slower. Farnsworth spacing basically. your brain starts associating the whole sound of each character instead of counting elements. it feels wrong at first because you think you're failing but after a few weeks something clicks and you start hearing "the" as a sound not as dit-dah-dit-dit or whatever.

also i'd say get on the air even if you feel not ready. even just listening to a slow net or sending with a friend on sked. that real-world pressure actually helped me more than any training software. i stayed on lcwo way too long before just getting on and doing it.

im kind of in the same boat honestly, sitting right around 14wpm and feeling stuck so watching this thread. one thing i tried recently was the W1AW code practice transmissions, just having it on in the background while im doing other stuff around the shack. not sure if its actually helping yet but it feels less like homework than sitting at the computer doing drills lol