language confusion is a mess. as a python newbie i am very focused on learning for the last two weeks. now i am not even able to declare my php-variables properly and end up getting errors the whole evening.

In not affected by this anyone, but I still get you. I tackled this problem with something you may describe as a mental barrier between the languages. Whenever you switch tell (or just think) to yourself "I'm switching to language Y now and this is how to do <Thing> in Y".