Learn English – “Make an experience” or “gain an experience”

A common phrase for such an experience is a "first-hand experience" or something that can "only be experienced first hand." A more informal way to say this is: "you had to be there."

Similar adjectives:

• personal/individual/unique experience
• a live experience
• empirical, hands-on
• indescribable, ineffable, beyond words

And so on. I was not able to find one that specifically refers to the need of such a first-hand experience in order to fully understand something. I typically hear phrases like, "You won't understand until it happens to you."

As a Brit, I'd never confuse "make due" and "make do", but per comments above, they are homophones for some Americans (which as John Lawler comments, could put us in deep do-due here). I still don't really understand how anyone could think "due" makes sense, but here's someone on The Eggcorn Database who says he can (I think he's not exactly a "careful thinker", but there you go).

This NGram claims 44,400 instances of "make do", and 288 of "make due"...

...but when I scroll through them it seems there are actually only 74 instances of the incorrect form. But the actual numbers are irrelevant - it's incorrect, meaningless, and unacceptable.