Keep making a fool out of yourself buddy. And yes, you might want to read this instead of posting on reddit: https://www.amazon.com/Word-Power-Made-Easy-Vocabulary/dp/110187385X
It's really difficult to teach these kind of rarely used words. In my experience the best approach is teaching the etymology (good resource here.)
This is basically the approach of the book Word Power Made Easy. The most important think is that students can create connections between these words and more coming words in their mind and have a deeper understanding.
I usually make a chart that looks something like this but have my students guess the meaning of each part and then try to think of or look up other words with the same base/root.
This is also really helpful for future words because you will often encounter the same base/roots over and over.
To review, I write the parts on index cards for about 10 words and linked words and the have students try to make as many words as they can using the parts OR you could say the literal meaning of the parts (e.g. "over grave" and have them use the cards to make the single word- epitaph)
There's always ways to improve yourself in English! If you want to improve yourself, this book helps: https://www.amazon.com/Word-Power-Made-Easy-Vocabulary/dp/110187385X
I used this to get into university! :)