[gotodengo]

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)

[saint_angels]

after finishing first 2 novels, did you see if your writing style became more similar to the books style(not just more correct)? Some of first novels I finished when learning English was A Song of Ice and Fire series, which made me use some veery outdated lingo