so ive been at this for about 8 months now and honestly the first stretch from 5 to around 13wpm went pretty smooth. i was doing the Koch method with G4FON software every morning before work, maybe 20-30 minutes, and the characters just started clicking. but somewhere around 13 i just... stopped improving. its been like 6 weeks and i feel like im going backwards some days.

my main problem is i still catch myself counting dits and dahs on harder letters like Y and Q instead of just hearing the whole sound as one thing. i know thats wrong, i know i need to hear the rhythm as a word not individual elements, but knowing it and actually doing it are two different things apparently. also numbers are killing me, i dread whenever someone sends their callsign and theres a bunch of numbers in it.

is there some specific thing that finally made it click for you? i dont want to slow back down but i wonder if thats what i need to do. my character speed is set at 20 in farnsworth mode with extra spacing, maybe i should just tighten that up finally even if my copy drops off a lot at first.

yeah the 13-15wpm plateau is SO real, almost everyone hits it. what worked for me was just brutal repetition of the stuff i was weak on, i used the word lists in RufzXP and just drilled callsigns until the numbers stopped feeling like a separate thing to decode. also honestly the farnsworth spacing - at some point you have to just rip the bandaid off and tighten it up even if your accuracy tanks for a bit. your brain has been using that extra time as a crutch and it needs to un-learn that. i was copying maybe 60% for a couple weeks after i did it and then suddenly it all snapped back and i was at 17. the plateau is usually your brain consolidating before a jump, just dont quit on it.

im kind of in the same boat actually so following this thread. im at about 11wpm and the letters i learned last are still way slower than the first ones i drilled. someone told me to try just listening to QSOs on 40m at night even if i cant copy everything, just to get used to real sending rhythms instead of the perfectly timed computer stuff. havent been at it long enough to know if its working but it feels different at least, real operators have their own fist and the software doesnt really prepare you for that