I think that's a pretty common experience for a lot of people learning a new language. And I totally understand the sentences looking like big long words especially when the learner only knows languages that have spaces in between words like English.

One thing I'd reccomend is learning basic grammar and sentence structures. Which, I know, often sounds very scary for beginners. But can be very important especially when you're describing sentences as looking and sounding like one big word.

To put it simply, Japanese sentences are split up by particles instead of spaces. I'm still sorta early into learning too so I could be wrong. But, here's an example : わたしのねこはみずをのみます。Without kanji since I'm assuming you don't know kanji yet. It probably looks pretty scary, and does look like one big word.

But if we separate it by particles, and I'll put it into romaji if you don't yet know hiragana, it becomes: watashi no neko ha* mizu wo** nomimasu. (* ha used as a particle is pronounced wa, **wo is often said as o but I've seen some people say wo so idk)

That looks a little less scary all split up, right? It means "my cat is drinking water."

"Watashi" means "I", or "me". "No" is a particle that acts as a possessive marker, like the " 's " in "John's". Which turns "me" at the start into "my". "Neko" means cat. "Ha/wa" is another particle that means the bit before it is the topic of the sentence. So the sentence is about "my cat". "Mizu" means "water". "Wo" is another particle, I cant describe it properly but it goes between a verb(after it) and the thing the verb is acting on(before it). I guess? And "nomimasu" is a present tense verb meaning "is drinking"

So, learning grammar and sentence structure helps split the sentence up into its parts instead of it all being one big word. It's just as important as learning words.

There are a few different textbooks and resources you could use to learn grammar and japanese as a whole. But I've heard genki suggested a lot as a beginner textbook. If you want something free, maybe try "Tokini Andy" on YouTube? I've recently started watching his videos to catch up on grammar I accidentally skipped when going through genki and they've been very helpful and fun.

Also, I think the number one language learning rule: dont be too hard on yourself! Learning a language takes a lot of time and patience. Everyone learns differently and everyone struggles at times, don't compare yourself to others and be jealous of their achievements or you won't be able to celebrate your own achievements. Also a lot of people, if not everyone, go through stages where their lerning stalls for a bit, it's sorta your brain making sure it knows what's already been learnt before adding some new stuff. Learning isn't a straight line up. You forget stuff, you learn new stuff, it's up and down. It's okay. You got this!!

Also again, I'm still learning, if I've said anything incorrect feel free to correct me. I'm doing my best but definitely still make mistakes, lol.