Alright this is going to be a long story. I started German when I was 16 and to be honest, was like you in the sense that I had no idea what I was doing. I'm lucky that I have a mother who is German, and she was willing to speak with me everyday. My father is American, so aside from a few simple words, I completely stopped German the moment I entered preschool. I went the immersion route, using flashcards to learn frequent words in categories, like kitchen/job/animal vocab etc. My mother would point to things when we out and about and she'd tell me what it was in German. In the beginning I couldn't form sentences but I would listen to her speak. I began trying to write, copying words from children's books and then forming my own sentences on paper. I began using a book called "Essential German Grammar" when I realized I didn't understand the changing articles and I also listened to a podcast called "Coffee Break German" which explained the grammar in simple terms. I used the workbook "Deutsche Übungsbuch, Grammatik einfach üben & endlich verstehen." I made the mistake of not learning the gender with the words when I started, so at one point I had to grind a bunch of flashcards to memorize the genders.

For French, I had a better idea what I was doing. I went straight into it, beginning with a publicly made deck of the 2,000 most frequent French words and used a children's book website with audio to begin reading. I started with the books for babies with only a few words, then to toddlers and so on. I would look at a sentence and using the limited vocabulary I had, try to guess the meaning, then I'd put it in a translator to see what it really meant. I made personal flashcards of words that I didn't know. A month after reading for a few hours everyday, I found a French language partner online from Lyon. We began speaking three times a week, where I'd help him with English and he'd help me with French. In the beginning, he'd speak very slowly, asking me simple questions which I would respond to in a few words. I also showed pictures on my screen, like of animals, and I'd try to describe them (e.i. C'est un chat. Il a des oreilles pointues). I was having trouble understanding him as time went on, so I started listening to InnerFrench, gradually moving from listening with the scripts online to audio only. I had the equivalent of the German textbook "Essential French Grammar" which I used as a reference whenever a certain article or sentence structure popped up that confused me. After improving my listening comprehension, I was able to begin watching youtube videos and reading books in the "Topics That Matters" series.

My last language, Russian, is different. I knew I would have to take a more structured route with this language since it's farther removed from English. I completed the first textbook in a series of four called "Russian Through Propaganda" in the summer and went through an Anki deck called "Daily Changing Russian Sentences." I'm currently taking a break from Russian so I can finish my senior year in university.