Lived in Taiwan for years while studying traditional Chinese. This is spot-on. There’s this bizarre almost Pokémon level obsession (gotta catch'em all!) among foreign language learners with a STEM background where they fixate on amassing huge numbers of “memorized words.” Learning words in isolation is exactly what you don’t want to do, you need to see them in their context.

It’s like thinking you can get good at chess by just memorizing how each piece moves. You need the board, the surrounding "context", and not just study in isolation.