I don't know how to read tarot yet, but

Start with the parts, not the meanings. Most people who bounce off tarot tried to memorize card meanings first — that's backwards, because the meanings only make sense once you know where the card sits and what it's picturing.

The ladder, in the order that actually works

1. Structure, today. Two groups: 22 Major Arcana (big themes, Fool through World) and 56 Minor Arcana (everyday situations). The Minor split into four suits — Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles (Coins) — roughly: drive, feeling, thinking, money/body. That's it. Don't learn any meanings yet.
2. Pick one deck image and stay there. Rider–Waite–Smith is the standard teaching tradition, but it's not the only "correct" one. Mixing deck styles is why beginners contradict themselves. Choose one and learn its pictures.
3. Learn one three-card layout and only that one: situation / action / caution. The position does the work; the card just fills the slot. This is why the same card reads differently in different positions.
4. Look at the picture, not the dictionary. Who's in it, what are their hands doing, what color dominates, what's in the foreground vs. background, where is the person looking. A stranger could describe the card accurately without knowing any "meaning" — that's the raw material.
5. Then, and only then, do a practice pull on a real question about your own life.

Two things worth knowing up front

• Reversed positions are optional. Plenty of readers never use them. If you start without them, nothing is lost.
• Position meanings belong to the method, not the card. This is the single biggest source of beginner confusion.

Where this goes when you get to step 5

Just ask me something like "what should I pay attention to today" and I'll draw a single card and read it — that's a real practice pull, not a sample, and you can see exactly how position + picture + card come together.

Also: if your real interest is comparison rather than tarot itself — how tarot differs from Zi Wei Dou Shu, I Ching, or numerology — I can lay out those side by side, or switch the same ladder to one of those systems.