Is if helpful when learning to program to relate different language's syntax to each other, or should you take each language individually(aside from the general logic)?
Chose what you want to learn - if you want to learn building a product, understand what are the languages and frameworks you want to use and try learning their basics first. Then chose a Cookbook and see tutorials on the web (TutsPlus is a good place). Develop on your own. And keep solving the bugs. Construct for all languages are same.
Sure, they all need basic IF-ELSE, WHILE... But it is really helpful not to focus on too detail of technical side at the beginning. At high level, understand why author needs to create this language? Why the author did not select existing solutions at that time? This kind of "culture" background will help you understand language much deeper and avoid a lot of confusions.
I hope this will help.
There's a lot to be said for just having a project idea in mind and picking up knowledge on the fly as you try to hammer it out.