Three levels of difficulty, and my best ways to get through each

(By the way, I'm going to start sticking in Japanese now, with a goal of this becoming a Japanese language blog eventually.  You've got rikaikun now and know your かな; it should be OK.)

I suppose language teachers know this, but I've never seen it written anywhere.

I find there are essentially three levels of difficulty of learning a new word or sentence pattern.¹

1. Easy; I get it without much work.  とても (totemo; "very") is an example of this.  I saw it, I knew it.  Maybe it's because it starts sort of like "totally."  Same for たくさん (takusan, "lots") -- I don't know why -- and many English import words written in カタカナ.
2. I keep forgetting it, but I can make a mnemonic for it.  Here are some examples:
   
   
   • おこします (okoshimasu; "wake [someone] up").  It was especially tough because of the similar おきます (okimasu; "awaken") that Rosetta inconveniently put in the same lesson.  The mnemonic:  of course she must (o-ko-she-must) get up!
   • There seem to be way too many sets of words that sound almost identical: for example, からい ("spicy"), かるい ("lightweight").  I study one of such a set at a time to reduce my confusion, but also make something to help me remember:  for からい (spicy), it is "KAAAA!  RAA!  It's too spicy!"  Sometimes it's a stretch.
   • For よやく (yoyaku, "reservation"), I remember "Yo, ya cool with me staying here tonight."  Actually, I did a twofer:  "Yo, ya cool with me taizaiing here tonight" -- so I could also learn a word for "stay."
3. No mnemonic will do it -- sometimes repetition is the only way.
   
   I couldn't find anything to make me able to remember 少なことも (すくな くとも; sukuna kotomo; "at least").  So I made a little chorus, once again doing a twofer to cement learning another phrase:
   
   おなじ ぐらい、おなじ ぐらい、 すくな くとも じゅう、すくな くとも じゅう
   onaji      gurai   ,   onaji     gurai   ,     sukuna  kutomo  juu     ,    sukuna  kutomo juu
   about the same,    about the same,   at least               10,         at least               10
   
   and made myself learn it while doing a repetitive activity (exercising).

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¹ Though most of these examples are more properly written in kanji, I'm doing them in かな kana  for now, to keep things simple.