I know vaguely of the science of linguistics and I want to actually try my hand at seriously attempting to learn a language. Unfortunately, linguists keep throwing a bunch of words at my brain like "syntax" and "conjugation" and "grammar trees" that just... go over my fucking head. Is it better to try and learn the structure of one particular language at a time or will understanding linguistics first give me a better edge? And if so, where do I start if I want to sit down and actually try to fluently understand a second language?
Unless you're interested in linguistics as a field I wouldn't worry about it at all, almost no one who has ever learned a second language knew anything about linguistics
and honestly the languages I'm competent in were all stuff I learned in school so IDK. I guess my thoughts are that you need a lot of input and that analysing and translating individual sentences out of context (relatively common in textbooks) is not helpful.
the most important thing is motivation, so find something you're passionate about