The way I used to learn a lot of words in many languages (mostly English) is to figure out what they mean in context and only if I really can't figure it out (because they are very broad or very specific) look it up and maybe try to remember the next time I encounter them.

That also has the advantage that you'll understand the common words first instead of what someone considered to be a sensible order (one of the first words I learned in French was the French word for parrot, which I have used exactly never since except for joking around with people who learned from the same textbook).