As a current year 12 student doing a VCE Language, I would highly recommend Duolingo as a starting point. Certainly, I would say that it's very important for you to practice writing sentences or translating simple passages every day as you become more proficient. Doing so will not take too much effort, but it will help your brain to get used to the mechanics of the language. You will most likely hear this a lot once you get to VCE, but there is no science to learning a language. It's more about repeated exposure.
Best of luck with your studies 🙂
