A couple of other things:

Gender

In most Indo-European-based languages, 'thing' words have a gender
(masculine, feminine or -in German and Latin, but, thank god, not in
Spanish- neuter). This doesn't necessarily tie up with what the thing
is. (Thus, in German, the word for 'girl', is gramatically not
feminine, but neuter).

It's a really strange concept for those of us -virtually all- who grew
up speaking English.

So for us, there's no difference between 'el dia', and 'la dia', or 'el
noche' and 'la noche'.

But if you try talking to native people and you use the wrong gender,
they simply won't understand what you're trying to say.

When you're learning a new language, you must get these genders right.
So every thing you learn the spanish for, you must call 'the night', or
'the day' or ' an automobile'. When you test yourself, if you get the
gender wrong - or even if you got it right, but only by chance, cos you
weren't sure - , you've got the word wrong, and you put the card back
in the unlearned pile.

Pronunciation

You do have to make a major effort to get this reasonably right (this
is why i suggested store keepers). Once again, if you get the word
right but pronounce it wrong, local people may not know what you are
talking about. I have never forgotten trying to buy a bottle of Perrier
water in France, nearly fifty years ago, repeating the word over and
over again, watching the glazed look in the store-keepers eyes until I
finally managed to get it (roughly) right.

hth

Lazarus