first time learning tarot

Get accustomed to its energy first. Keep it on you for a few days, even sleep with your deck underneath your pillow. Go through the cards and admire the artwork. Don't forget to cleanse them at first. 

Then, this is what i did bc i'm lazy asf but i just jumped straight to readings (on myself) and learned each card's meaning with the handbook. So for example, everyday pull a three card reading for the day and see which cards pop up and look up the meaning. With enough practice, you'll get the gist of it until you'll be able to read them intuitively and it'll be more accurate with time. Remember, it's a skill to be honed. 

Once done, don't just stick to the cards literal meaning in the books. If your intuition screams "he's gay!!" with the Fool card in a love reading... then he must be. Eventually, it will all come down to feelings and intuition when performing a reading. And it's very personal !!! Everyone has their own interpretation of each decks. 

There's plenty of fun ways to practice tarot outside of traditional three-cards readings. Like, deck interviews, asking your cards to make up a story, to predict the end of a movie/show you're watching, what your relationship would be like with Leon Kennedy if you were in Resident Evil etc.