I agree! It can be tricky to balance comprehensible input against harder content. on the one hand, most students feel discouraged when they don’t understand enough, but on the other hand, sometimes diving into harder content is necessary to adapt too. I wrote about this in a very old article here: Triggering quantum leaps in Chinese listening ability.

You will make progress if you persist; you are moving forward even it doesn’t always feel like that! And yes, reading all graded readers is a good start. 🙂 I’m working on a structured approach to listening (new course under construction), because currently, listening is even harder than reading when it comes to finding and navigating resources. I think the translation issue you mention will solve itself over time, especially if you focus on content at the right level (i.e. not too hard). I talked a little bit about mental translation in this Q&A episode!

For narrow content, I’ve really been enjoying 抖音 since the algorithm will tailor videos to your interests almost automatically, plus there’s never a real risk of running out of interesting content. You can really use the addictive qualities of the algorithm to the benefit of your Chinese learning.