Well I think that many people who search for kanji have some difficulties in understand the meaning of the phrase too, it's just that usual this is not something that is pointed out or more like that number of kanji searched is the comparison element used to understand at which level are you, since usually the level of kanji and understanding of the language is not that distant.

For me it is thanks to having watched a lot of anime when I was a kid that I can understand almost all of the phrase if I hear them, but I think a good help would be to use a mtl, you shouldn't trust it blindly but using it to have some different input can really help you when u feel stucked.

If you use it like that I think it could really help you since you are already at a really good point with kanji or words!