I really struggle with games like this and the Goldbox series, oldschool Everquest, Wizardry, etc. How do you actually learn to play these old games? can someone tell me.

Play it. Read the manual. Trial and error. Guides.

Not talking about this game, old games are about learning any bizarre key combinations and UI, and simply getting used to the non-conventional UIs, because standards were not really established yet. Playing the games at release in the late 80s and early 90s, learning the keys/controls for every game was just something gamers did for every game.

It's jarring today when a game veers from common practices.Kind of funny reflecting on it wasn't much of thought in the "good old days".

Yeah I understand what you mean. It's beem such a shock for me trying to go back to these old games from the mid 80's to 90's. Just having to enter commands, having to enter manual notes, actually learning where different hotkeys are, trying to play through missions with no map markers or even maps at all, etc. I'm really into the pixel art, synth music and text based conversations, but for example, the Gold Box games just flatten me every time, I actually have to learn how to roll stats and pay attention to conversations as there are no map markers, etc. It's really challenging.

The only way to learn how the games work is reading the manual and playing the game(s). You will need to use the manual and adventure journals, they contain important text and information, graph paper to draw maps on and a little patience to learn keyboard and mouse commands, if you wish to play them the oldschool way.

We aren't living in the early 80's or 90's anymore, so you could set-up keyboard macros, so you don't have to memorize input commands. With keyboard overlays enabled you don't have to do the hard work to remember which key(s) to press to issue a command or carrying out actions.

You could also download and use Gold Box Companion plus available mods. It does everything to make your adventuring life more comfortable, drawing maps, displaying journal entries and much more. I would suggest to donate a small amount of money to honor Zorbus' work. You don't have to, but, if you can, please do.

You play a better game, this one is actually bad. I'd suggest any of the early Ultima titles for a similar experience made by someone who had a clue what they were doing.