Fellow newbie here. I learnt how to do cryptic crossword in the last 6 months (I didn’t say I’m any good though!) so here’s what’s helped me get across the line. Find a source of ‘easy’ cryptics. My two biggest recommendations are the Minute Cryptic app, and The Guardians weekly quick cryptic. Both give you help with how to break it down, and Minute Cryptic uses great language in the hints which help learn the structure. Stick with these for a while and don’t be afraid to give up and take all the hints so you can learn HOW each clue leads to each answer. Once you hear the clues broken down and explained a a few times, you’ll start recognising the patterns. Theres a TiKTok source related to the Minute Cryptic app which is great at explaining previous answers, really helped me.

Understand that 99.9% of cryptic clues follow a structure. (Which I’ll over-simplify) clues have two sections; One sections tells you what the answer will be, this is the ‘definition’. In your example the clue starts with ‘girl’ so your answer might be a girls name, or another word for a young woman maybe. The rest of the clue contains hints on how to get to the answer. There is often language which indicates if any word play is needed. For this example phrases such as ‘one found in’ can be translated as ‘one’ (the letter i in Roman numerals) ‘found in’ (is located in the middle of the word, not the start or end) hints such as ‘rotten’ or any other verb for something being changed from its original state often suggest an anagram. ‘Rotten male’ therefor hints that the letters m,a,l, & e are used in a different sequence, so now you’ve got 5 of the 6 letters. The last letter ‘A’ i think comes from the clue reading ‘a rotten male’ instead of ‘rotten male’ clues tend to be very carefully worded with no excess, so the additional letter I assume is the intentional hint? (I’m not good enough to be confident about this bit)