As with most difficult things, you have to learn by doing.
For well-established board games, the best solution is to watch an intro video and then play a few rounds using an online version like BGA if it's available.
For non-well established board games, someone with some pedagogical chops has to bite the bullet and read the whole manual and then teach it, in little pieces, to folks during an example playthrough.
There is a weird conceit among some board gamers that you can know what the hell you're doing on a first playthrough. For any moderately complex game or beyond, of course you cannot possibly know much about how to play much less what strategies to use. This is why I don't like playing games once or very infrequently.
For well-established board games, the best solution is to watch an intro video and then play a few rounds using an online version like BGA if it's available.
For non-well established board games, someone with some pedagogical chops has to bite the bullet and read the whole manual and then teach it, in little pieces, to folks during an example playthrough.
There is a weird conceit among some board gamers that you can know what the hell you're doing on a first playthrough. For any moderately complex game or beyond, of course you cannot possibly know much about how to play much less what strategies to use. This is why I don't like playing games once or very infrequently.