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?
First step is determining what language you want to learn, Asian languages are vastly different from European languages, that means the difficulty and the methods are very different.
But really if you must have an intrinsic reason to learn a language e.g you want to watch foreign media, or you have family you want to communicate with in a different language, or you are planning to spend some time abroad.
The biggest problem is long term motivation, this is a process that will take at least a few months to years depending on your goals.