I was mostly treading water in my Portuguese practice for the past few years, before getting remotivated this year and making some decent progress. I agree wit

I was mostly treading water in my Portuguese practice for the past few years, before getting remotivated this year and making some decent progress. I agree with many of TFA's points > To learn a lot from reading, you need to read a lot, and for that you have to understand at least the gist of what you are looking at. Reading was huge for me. After "speaking" the language for 5 years I finally read a full novel. I immediately noticed improvements in my writing and understanding. A few weeks later I finished reading a second novel and am now on to the third. (I really recommend The Martian by the way, it seems like it's been translated a ton, and it's written in a mostly first person diary style so the tenses are fairly simple while being more engaging than kid's books)