I'm really good with basics, I smash them... but then when it starts to become unnecessary for conversation, I get really bad at remembering things.

I think you are right, you remember what's important to you. So I call potato chips "Those dry potato cookies" in Mandarin, because it gets the job done! Cantonese has to be my favorite and least favorite language. It's soooo difficult but it's also fun as hell, I feel like it's the easiest language to troll in and the bad words a grammar structures lol