Memorizing phrases or words

Hey guys!
The big obstacle I'm facing in learning Japanese is vocabulary. Because my vocabulary is so bad I'm not able to continue learning more grammar points because of that.
I read somewhere in the internet (I don't remember where exactly) that learning phrases and sentences and knowing every single word in them is more effective than learning word by word yourself and then creating sentences. Is it really a good idea or not(
I'm struggling with my lack of vocabulary in Japanese therefore can you advice me on some good ideas(!
Thank you so much!

IMO, learning phrases is a more effective way of learning any language (Japanese especially).
Simply putting vocabularies together in a grammatically correct way does not always make a good sentence.
Two words may have similar meanings, but they are not always exchangeable - it's situation dependent.
So, if you learn the whole phrase, then you know that is the accepted practice.

But, eventually, you do need to supplement your phrases with more vocabularies.

Thank you so much