One of my leeches is the level 14 意地悪 vocab. I find it pretty hard to memorize because the meaning of the word is not obvious from the kanji (idea earth bad?) and the reading is a bit irregular (じ instead of the more common ち for 地, kunyomi for 悪).
One thing that helped me finally get it right was adding 意地 to the Anki deck that I use for additional study. This word can be learned as soon as level 11 (the level for 意), it’s a common word according to jisho and if you learn its meaning (stubbornness/disposition/desire) and its reading it will be very easy to jump to 意地悪 from there (“a desire for evil” or somesuch).
Good on you to find your own strategies! You’ll encounter this one in the wild for sure, as it’s pretty commonly used in anime (it being part of many relationships, someone teasing another in various ways). It’s hardly a new advice, but I find it is still the best one: keep on immersing and consuming Japanese language media, and you’ll eventually internalize and naturalize some of these stranger readings.
