Confusion

I am a little depressed these days,for even though I made a great effort in my English study.I didn't make much progress.I know learning a foreign lauage a long and hard journey and I needn't have been so anxious,however I find some problemes I have had in this progress,maybe they are also your problemes .I share them here to everybody.
I think I spent too much time to memorize new words,especially one word has many distinct meanings .For example,"clear",the room is very clear,am i making myself clear,it is as far as I knew.After seaching on the internet,"clear"can mean "clean",and even can mean "get over".The amount of such sorts of words are innumerous.they are really driving me mad .
Then I reminded a story I came across recently on italki,someone would ask questiones like what's the difference between "忽略" and "忽视" or the difference between "我要"and "我想".As a native speaker in Chinese,I don't know exact difference between them frankly.What I want to say is ,as a foreign language, some words we can recognize them,can use them,can tranlate them. That is enough,spending too much time in details maybe is a waste of time.