I’m studying too mostly on my own for about 2.5 years. I can read a most characters I see in the wild, though that still leaves enough that understanding the text is hard or impossible. OverallI find reading much easier to study than listening. I haven’t used DuoLingo and would recommend HelloChinese instead. But that’s only a few months to half a year of material; you have to move on. After that I used an Anki deck of HSK vocab.
Are you reading anything? Find graded readers like from Mandarin Companion and read those (start with ones that seem too easy).
Have you learned to write any of the characters? I don’t think you need to learn to write all of them, but learning at least 50 or so got me to understand and recognize the characters better in my reading as well.
The Pleco app is a nice reader letting you look up words just by tapping on them. Also turn off pinyin in any study apps you’re using, just use characters (except for in answers to verify you’re right).
Are you reading anything? Find graded readers like from Mandarin Companion and read those (start with ones that seem too easy).
Have you learned to write any of the characters? I don’t think you need to learn to write all of them, but learning at least 50 or so got me to understand and recognize the characters better in my reading as well.
The Pleco app is a nice reader letting you look up words just by tapping on them. Also turn off pinyin in any study apps you’re using, just use characters (except for in answers to verify you’re right).