This study was aimed to investigate the difficulties as internal and external problems faced by 
elementary students in one of the schools in Indonesia to learn vocabulary using vocabra game. The
sample in this study was the fifth grade students having low ability in mastering vocabulary. This
research was a descriptive qualitative. In collecting the qualitative data, the researchers did interview
and questionnaire. There were some internal problems which come from the students, they were: (1)
the low motivation in learning English; (2) the difficulty to get the word meaning in vocabulary test;
(3) the difficulty to pronounce English words correctly in oral test; (4) the difficulty to spell the letters
in vocabulary test; and (5) the difficulty to use words in vocabulary test. Meanwhile, the external
problems come from the teacher and class situation, they were: (1) the teacher didn’t use alternative
media in teaching learning process: (2) the classroom activities tended to be teacher centered; (3) the
teacher only used the text book as the teaching material provided by the teacher; (4) there was a low
interaction between students and teacher; and (5) only few students participated in the learning process
actively.  
Keywords: Vocabulary, student difficulties, internal, external, problem, vocabra games