Stūtiyi, Lal!
I’m learning how to speak Sinhala the Nemo phone app. It’s easy to listen and learn while doing mundane tasks (laundry, walking/riding to work, etc).
With regards to #1 above, like you’ve said before “it’s one thing to read and memorize”, but it’s a whole different thing to comprehend it and put it into action. Just like learning Sinhala, memorization (translating in your head) is like a covered mind (pancanīvarana), it will only get you so far. You need to change your gati (root thoughts and word associations) to attain success.
With metta!