Vocabulary is always important and always difficult. Right now, my husband and I are learning Japanese (because we moved to Japan), and he listens to Podcasts that teach Japanese for different situations (going shopping, eating in a restaurant, weather...). They help him with the pronunciation and give him confidence when he hears the phrases from the Podcast. Maybe there is something like that for English. Another option is just vocabulary lists (I use Quizlet) to drill and memorize vocabulary. Don't be embarrassed! You will get past this challenge! Learning another language is difficult.

Perry, there are different methods to studying vocabulary. One method is to learn new words by memorizing their meaning in your language - word for word. Another method is to learn new words from context - by talking to someone or by seeing how the word is used in a sentence. Learning new words without context is like consuming isolated nutrients in supplements. Learning new words from context is like consuming whole foods. Now, you mentioned an important thing, that you can understand many English words when reading them, but find it hard to think of them when speaking. This is active and passive vocabulary. And what you are facing is practically what all people who are learning new languages face. To improve your active vocabulary, challenge yourself. Take a movie, a book, or a song then summarize it in your own words and then give your opinion on it, say what you think the author wanted to convey to the audience. This will expand your comfort zone as well as improve your active vocabulary. Keep on practicing. Either find someone whom you can do this challenge with or simply talk to yourself.

But it's OK, Marek, now I found you in the discussion section~ You are right, I need to use the target language more than learn it. And the advice “think in English” is really helpful. Thank you for your taught and advices!

The basic idea about vocabulary is that there's passive and active vocabulary. The distinction is that passive vocabulary is something you recognize and recall its meaning when you come across it in reading or speech, but not something that you would use yourself. Active vocabulary consists of the words and phrases you use yourself without problems. Repeating words in a vacuum (without any context, or point of reference), while it may help you with - after enough repetition - recognizing these words and having them pass into your passive vocabulary but not so much so that you'll start using them yourself. So to build a respectable vocabulary you'd have to read a lot, basically. The more your brain gets used to seeing words in the appropriate context, the more it'll remember which will give you the ability to recall these words later. Also you'll need to go beyond reading and start writing notes and such, start thinking in the target language.. it might sound slightly insane but imagining having a conversation with another person in the target language is something I find helpful. Learning another language actually isn't hard per se - it just requires a lot of consistent effort, over a period of time. oops i meant to click "answer this question". now that's embarrassing