I was going to say "write ignorant comments on social media about the paper based solely on the title" but your approach sounds more useful.
You must be fun at parties.
One of the best ways into a new area is if you can find a well written PhD or MSc thesis in it. Finding that isn't always easy, but if they are well done the background introductory material will be approachable and much more complete than a paper, and the bibliography should be useful.
You make assumptions, just when you learned your first language. Then you check if everything makes sense. If it does, then probably your assumptions were correct.
I think authors also taught about that and wrote the paper for newbies. Almost every new researcher is reading from top to bottom.