Butterfly effect: Photo: Usually, we say we "know" something if we can remember it and understand it. When you're learning a language, it is easy to be deceived by this definition of "knowing", and to think you "know" a piece of the language, when really, you are still only halfway there.

Get some Chinese in you!: Photo: A lot of people have ideas about how much their brain can handle, but they have no idea where they got those ideas. One very common idea like this is that you can "only learn so much" at a time. You probably have a belief like this. Could you learn 500 new words a day? You will probably say you couldn't. But how do you know? Have you ever tried?

Free yourselfOften, your native language gets in the way of learning a new language. To some extent, this will always happen—your native language starts getting in the way. Trying to learn through it becomes like "scratching an itch through your boot", as the Chinese saying goes (隔靴搔癢).

So we need to get our native language out of the way. Easier said than done, surely! How do you do this? By connecting the language you learn directly to your world.

Let's imagine, for example, two Japanese learners of English: "Mr Think-in-Japanese", and "Mr Think-in-English". Mr Think-in-Japanese learns English vocabulary like this:

• dog: 犬
• angry: 怒っている!
• tired: 眠たい、疲れている

When learning a language, it is really helpful to write and talk about things that matter to you personally, for two reasons. First, we remember what matters to us more easily. Second, we often find ourselves talking about ourselves in life (e.g. when we introduce ourselves, or in ordinary conversation), and so it prepares us for one of the most common real-life situations in which we will use the new language.

One of the great advantages of the Poligo system is you can use Editor feedback to create perfectly correct examples of English, tailor-made to subjects that matter to you.

Here are some suggestions for some personal topics you might write about. Even better, work your way through the list and write about them all, and with the help of Poligo's Editors, create a perfect English version of your life story!