The second big struggle for many Spanish learners is to actually learn enough vocabulary to do the tasks they need to accomplish. Your Spanish textbook will likely present vocabulary in long chapter lists. Sometimes they will break those down into categories, which is better than the whole list of words in one or two big columns. Unfortunately, these lists rarely give you enough (or any) context for the words. It becomes an exercise in rote memorization, one that most people are destined to fail. In addition, these vocabulary lists tend to be way too long. Many students give up out of frustration after just 10-15 words. I get it. It's overwhelming.
What's the solution to this problem? For most, the solution is to limit vocabulary to only the essential words. Once these words are mastered, you will be able to mentally process and understand the language at a high level. This high-frequency vocabulary will serve as a strong base for sentence decoding (and later sentence construction), and will allow you to pick up additional vocabulary along the way.
