This technique might be helpful for the extremely basics, but what is something meaningful you would put on a card for something like hope or dignity that wouldn't be easily confused? I find pictures helpful but usually I use them to illustrate the example sentence and not the word itself.

I agree your original language is a crutch but what I've found has made get better faster is native language translations of the word. It takes a while to get comfortable doing that, but once you start doing it often enough it works very well.