so ive been at this for about 8 months now and started from basically zero, got up to 5wpm pretty fast which felt great, then 8, then 10 and i was feeling really good about it. but somewhere around 13-14wpm i just hit this wall and its been like two months and i feel like im not really improving anymore. im doing lcwo every day pretty much, maybe 20-30 minutes, and i can copy okay at 13 but as soon as i push to 15 it just falls apart. like i'll get the first couple letters of a word and then miss the next character because im still thinking about what i just heard. i know the answer is probably just more practice but wondering if anyone else went through this same plateau and if there was something specific that actually helped them break through it. currently using farnsworth timing with character speed at 20 and word speed around 13.

yeah that 13-15 range is where a lot of people get stuck, you're definitely not alone. what helped me more than anything was just stopping the head copying entirely and forcing myself to write nothing down for a while. sounds backwards but when you're trying to write every letter you end up in this loop where your hand is still busy with the last character while your ears are already two ahead. i spent a few weeks just listening at 16-17wpm without trying to copy anything at all, just absorbing the rhythm, and when i went back to actually copying it clicked way faster than i expected. also honestly the jump from 15 to 18 felt easier than 13 to 15 did so there's that to look forward to i guess.

I'm kind of in the same boat actually, hovering around 12wpm and feeling like my brain just refuses to go faster lol. One thing I read was that you're supposed to stop thinking of letters and start hearing whole words as sounds, like how CQ or 73 just sounds like one thing after a while. I havent really figured out how to get there yet but maybe thats the thing you're missing too? idk just a thought. Also have you tried just listening to QSOs on 40m or somewhere, even if you can only catch every third word it might help your ear get used to faster stuff.