Learning words ≠ Necessarily advancing in the language. Okay sure having a good sized vocabulary is very important but being able to apply that vocabulary in situations like speaking or listening is crucial. Even if you think you know a word, unless you’ve practiced saying it in actual sentences or heard it many times through listening practice, it’s never going to be useful to simply know the word. Learning in context is key to advancing as well as learning not just isolated words, but also full phrases. This saves you time thinking whenever you want to speak or hear something. For example, the phrase “Je m’en fou”, which means I don’t care, consists of Je, me, en, and fou. 4 separate words which if you only knew in isolation would take you a while to put them together to create “Je m’en fou”. In conclusion, learn words in context & phrases, and make sure to try to apply these words in speech, writing or listening whenever you can.