Question about ~はじめる

Japanese
#1

日本語を勉強しはじめて すぐ、日本語の難しさが分かった。[する]
(Soon after I started studying Japanese, I realized the difficulty of the language.)

I don’t understand why it’s て at the end here? Shouldn’t it be た?

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#2

I believe you shouldn’t need the past tense form twice in this sentence since you already have 日本語の難しさが分かった. Just another example of how being too literal with English can backfire. The emphasis is on すぐ

From the Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns 日本語文型辞典:

空港に着いてすぐホテルに電話した。
As soon as I reached the airport, I phoned the hotel

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#3

I had posted this exact same question here 22 days ago and here was the answer. Hth.

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#4

て is connective, and as such has no proper tense of its own. It’s either implied by context or actively defined by another verb. 〜てから comes to mind also, which is used in a way that indicates past tense in English, such as 日本に来てから、〜 (after I came to Japan, ~).

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