When I do vocab lessons for a word I’ve never heard before, or one which seems to be synonymous with other words I’ve learnt, I’ll look it up on Jisho.org to see if I can get a better understanding of usage/context. I also sometimes ask people usage differences on HelloTalk etc.
What other tools do you guys use to achieve this same goal? I’ve heard of some people using JP dictionaries and thesauruses, but I do not know what online ones are good.
I always look up example sentences on Jisho or Tangorin. It has been noted multiple times on this forum, however, that many sentences are weird or unnatural, so take it with a grain of salt. It’s good enough to get an idea of the usage of vocabulary.
I used to use Jisho, not you can’t never be sure if the example sentences are correct there, since they were written by non native speakers. Also, I felt that sometimes Jisho didn’t have any results for some JP words. I’m using http://ejje.weblio.jp/ at the moment.
Also, don’t be scared just because it’s in JP. You don’t need much to use a JP => JP dictionary honestly.