Good Day!
I have an interesting conundrum - I can speak Chinese just fine (in fact I just took an HSK placement exam at the local Confucius Centre and was ranked at 4 for listening and speaking). I however, cannot write (or type if you will) nor can I read past (approx. HSK 2). I would rather learn simplified characters as the people I converse with use those (mainland-Chinese). Any advice? Some background, my wife is Chinese (but due to time constraints and work schedules can't teach me), I lived in China for 18 months, I have only be actively trying to learn Mandarin for about 3 years now, and we speak daily in the home.
Thanks!
EDIT: I have tried learning how to read by using Duolingo which seeing as I can listen (and understand) it has helped a little by learning by association. I also took a class in 2012 as an elective in Uni, but the teacher wasn't great (just checked she has a whooping 1.9 on RateMyProf) and I struggled to understand her let alone a totally foreign language. I understand pinyin just fine, but want to be able to learn the characters.
So my question is -given the above information. Does any one have any resources they would recommend to me to help me learn to read.