You'll have a major disadvantage if you don't understand the syntax. This should take a day, a weekend or maybe a week to learn. As for understanding everyone

You'll have a major disadvantage if you don't understand the syntax. This should take a day, a weekend or maybe a week to learn. As for understanding everyone elses code: getting good at this is one of the things we professionals often struggle with ("why did (s)he do it this way here and that way there?") Also don't put too much effort into things that don't pay off in day-to-day work. Get a good IDE (Netbeans is free, I even prefer it, some people prefer PHPStorm which is paid.) Stay curious, continue learning, most likely you cannot and will not stay a PHP dev for the rest of your life.