I confess, I’ve mostly used the forums to quickly find things and haven’t engaged a whole lot, so I don’t know if my experience is common, BUT
Learning to write kanji immeasurably improved my ability to read and understand it.
I really recommend you throw this userscript from Looki and Kumirei on (or, if you find userscripts intimidating or intrusive, you can use jisho.org and search #kanji followed by the reading) and write out each kanji however many times you think is useful when you learn it, and each time you review it.
This will make reviews considerably more time consuming, but I, for one, have seen enormous benefits in my ability to distinguish similar kanji and skillfully pick out the radicals.
Also, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, we all suck at this. I’ve been studying on and off for more years than I care to admit, I lived in Japan for almost two years a long time ago, and I have a Japanese wife. I passed N4 in 2019 with the assistance of a considerable amount of luck.
Just enjoy it and don’t give up! Good luck.
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