When a dictionary does not solve your doubts While we learn a new language, sometimes, or rather, most of the time, we have difficulties deciding if a word can be used in a particular situation or which of two or more words better pass in a sentence. We take a look at our favorite dictionary and go through all the meanings, some with sample sentences, and its synonyms. Nevertheless, we may end up still having doubts, or we may misinterpret a meaning and use the term incorrectly. There is a method that may be helpful in many situations. It consists in making a targeted web search in which we introduce a couple or restrictions: the terms being searched and the sites where it will take place. As for the sites we will use reliable sources. For instance, one ore more recognized newspapers. It is better to present this method with an example. This morning I read a question posted on Instagram about a sentence in German. There was a verb and a noun, in this later case, the noun "movie". The sentence just said that the movie was about something and you were supposed to fill in the preposition "about". Someone asked if another verb could have been used and another user presented an option for it. But I wasn't sure about the right answer. So, I tried the search method. In this particular case, if you are using google, you would try something like this: "the movie" "about" site:nytimes.com OR site:newyorker.com. You will be presented with a list of search results and take a look at many sample sentences, or find which typical word combinations are more frequent, or just notice that there are no examples with the verb+preposition you are using. This method is quite flexible and could be used in creative ways. For instance, if you wanted to find out whether a particular expression is used in a specific country, you would restrict the search to include local newspapers in the site keyword.