There are a lot of words such as these that all seem similar in meaning.

I am hoping someone can provide a list of the ones most commonly used and in what situations each of them most commonly appear. Feel free to use the words included in this thread's title and any others you can think of.

I'm the kind of person who benefits greatly by setting conditions under which I should use certain types of words over others. Even if the conditions aren't 100% accurate, it still helps me to retain and use such words by having these sorts of guidelines to follow.

Any concise tips on these sorts of things would be a great help. I have already browsed http://www.alc.co.jp/ quite a bit, but it's a bit overwhelming and thus I am posting this thread.

Thanks.

You should probably read this thread if you haven't already found it.

Personally with similar words I prefer to start by ignoring most of them and only really trying to remember one or two, until I have a firm grip on those. Then I add a few more from the group.

As magamo says, learning them in an example-and-emotional-context helps a lot; I think it gives a better hook than the dictionary definitions, which can often be a bit vague and abstract.