There’s a mansion in San José, California called Winchester House.

Now a tourist attraction, it was built by the widow of the famous gun magnate William Winchester and was, at the time, the biggest mansion in America.

It has 161 rooms, with 40 bedrooms, 47 fireplaces, and has one of the strangest layouts ever.

Legend has it that Sarah Winchester visited a medium who told her that she had to build a mansion to house all the ghosts of the victims killed by Winchester guns.

And so she ordered the building of the house that continued nonstop for the following 38 years, only finally stopping the day she died.

There was never a master plan or design of the house, and so rooms, corridors, and everything else were added, removed, and modified as she felt fit.

She would draw her architectural modifications on a napkin, give it to the builders, and they would then go and do the best they could with these minimal designs.

As a result, there are doors and stairs that lead to nowhere, bedroom windows that look onto other bedrooms, and rooms that have no direct access.

It’s a mess.

Very bad Feng Shui I would imagine.[thrive_leads id=’1049′]

The design of Winchester House sometimes reminds me of the insides of English learners’ heads.

New vocabulary is added haphazardly, and the foundations are weak and disorganised.

Nothing ever gets consolidated. Nothing gets organised.

When you look at Winchester House, you don’t see a finished, cosy house that you look forward to going home to, however big it may be.

However, the house contains more than enough material to make a beautiful and well-designed house. The only problem is that it’s just all been put together haphazardly, without any thought or organisation.

If you’re a B1 or above, your head contains more than enough English to be very competent English speaker. So then why are you not?

Most likely it’s because the knowledge of English that you have in your head is unconsolidated and disorganised.

This means you don’t completely understand or know how to use the various grammar points in the language. It means you have difficulty finding vocabulary and phrases in your head.

Being competent in a language is simply the opposite of this.

Being competent in a language means you don’t have difficulty finding vocabulary in your head, and you can effectively put those words and phrases together in a sentence.

That’s all it is.

So work towards that instead.

If you just keep throwing more vocabulary into your head without any thought, your head will look more and more like Winchester House.

It’s better to have reduced knowledge, but well-structured, consolidated, and organised than to have a huge amount of random and unrelated knowledge without any thought as to how it all fits together.

Now sorry guys, there is no unifying equation similar to Einstein’s E=mc², but there is a system that you should follow that will allow you to learn relevant things, consolidate the knowledge you already have, and ensure that you don’t forget anything you learn.

First off, ask questions about everything you come across in English.

Those questions then become your study plan, and the answers to those questions become new knowledge.

Find things that you don’t completely understand, and then learn those things until you understand them completely.

How do you know if you understand something completely?

Simple.

You understand completely if you feel you could explain it to another person.

Aim to get that feeling with everything you learn.

But don’t just ask questions about new things that you come across. Ask questions about the things you already know, or think you know.

Here’s a simple exercise.

Have a conversation with yourself or talk about something aloud, whatever you want. Talk slowly and purposefully. Now analyse every sentence that comes out of your mouth and ask yourself at the end of each sentence if the sentence is correct.

If you can’t give an answer 100% as to why it’s correct, then maybe it isn’t.

It’s a slow process in the beginning but by doing this exercise you identify all the unconsolidated grammar in your head. Then you go learn it.

And finally, take notes.

Note-taking ensures that everything gets put in its place.

If you’re not sure how to take notes well, just read this post. It has everything you’ll ever need to know about note-taking.

Slowly, over time, you will deconstruct the mess of a house that you had. Then you’ll start to build a much more organised house, with everything in its place.

You’ll feel more comfortable and relaxed in this new house, and everything you add to it will be added in a logical manner.

But of course, nobody can build this house for you.

That’s your job.[thrive_leads id=’1049′]