语境。

skill comes from practic .

You'll just get use to it. 慢慢就习惯了。 As they say in chinese 加油！ 慢慢来。 On another note, I like the fact some characters have the same sound and tone. It helps me remember those chinese characters. for example the list you put above I'd say the first three are the most common used久九酒. I would associate those three characters together just because of they have the same sound. (maybe even make a sentence to help me remember them) 我很久没喝九瓶酒。 (I haven't drank 9 bottles of liquor for a long time.) Another thought: I think it's habit more than anything. I'd say only the first three characters are used on a daily basis you know 9 will go with some form of measure word for example 9 degrees 九度 9 years old 九岁 九本书 9 books。 酒 will mostly be grouped with another character like 啤酒 beer, 葡萄酒 wine. and 久 is a time word that tends to be grouped with 很, 很久 long time. i can see some small problems like 九度 （9 degrees) and 酒度 the alcohol content. also 肌肉 muscle and 鸡肉 chicken meat is another one like you mentioned. I even made a joke with the 公鸡攻击公鸡 the rooster attacks the rooster. haha. Good luck with your chinese studies

九 ,酒 可以做为一个词（word）单用，具体运用时可以与其他词组成词组(phrase)用，比如：喝酒，九号等。其他的是字（character）需要组成词（word）运用，比如：针灸，韭菜。“玖”比较书面(in book)，古文中见得比较多。I majored in Chinese,if you have some questions you can ask me,and you can help me learn English at the same time, hope to hear from you.

most words consist of 2 or 3 syllables and the sentence structure determines the part of speech used so you get the message where jiu's meaning is clear from the place it's used in it's all about the position in the sentence