I can't speak for Telugu however, [Devanagari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari) is very similar and used throughout northern India. Each vowel and consonant is considered as a separate entity. Each consonant has a pure form and a combined form with every consonant. There are also combinations of two or more consonants that can also be combined with each vowel!

For learning, you just learn the sounds separately for each vowel and consonant. So you can read & pronounce anything written in Devanagari script but not understand it if its a different language :)