I only just started trying at playing competitively since EV training and breeding is way easier. I enjoy battling so I figured it's worth giving it a go. Super Training simplifies EVs a lot too. I don't think I can follow set strategies though...I still like to play with my favourites, you know? Like I don't care too much about having different roles (wall, sweeper, etc.) or following the movesets that everyone else uses. I'll probably lose a lot more because of it, but at least I'll be having fun losing instead of copying everyone else and using a Pokemon I don't like :) You should give it another shot now!
Pokemon is pretty basic because you can choose to use Kanji (the Chinese characters) or just Hiragana (the syllabaries, there's only 46). I just look up words I don't know, it's mostly a learning experience for me and I don't know too much yet. Trying to prepare myself for games that have never come out in English eventually, haha. I use this textbook called Genki, I have a PDF of it, plus some other resources I got off the net. It's actually not that hard at all, especially for multilingual people like ourselves :)