--- title: Learning a Language - Can You Use That Word in a Sentence? description: Learning a Language - Can You Use That Word in a Sentence? image: https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/dizi2.jpg --- [ Back to blog ](https://blog.crystalking.com) ![](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/dizi2.jpg) One of the challenges of learning a language is understanding how to best use all the vocabulary terms that you are learning. It's one thing to learn a word, but quite another to know how to employ that word in a sentence. I think this is one of the most challenging things for me when I am trying to learn on my own, without my tutors available. Take the word *impiegare, *for example. It means to employ, to engage or to use. But I'm not entirely sure how it's used in a sentence and when I turn to various resources I get conflicting answers. [WordReference](http://www.wordreference.com/iten/impiegare) (and the [Collins dictionary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_English_Dictionary)) say that: [![impiegare](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/impiegare.jpg)](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/impiegare.jpg)     But if I try to test the above in [Google Translate](http://translate.google.com) I get something completely different. [![googleimpiegare](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/googleimpiegare.jpg)](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/googleimpiegare.jpg) I'm sure that both phrases are correct, but which is more common? I suspect the latter. But short of asking someone who speaks Italian, I'm left to guess. Google is also blasted a lot for being wrong so I don't rely on it much but it is helpful to test when I'm writing sentences or conjugating. But there is a great tool I discovered recently, after I had already shared [my top 5 tools for learning a language](https://blog.crystalking.com/crystal-king/blog/2013/03/21/learning-italian-best-tools). It's called the [Tatoeba Project](http://tatoeba.org/), which helps language learners discover examples of words used in context. I was very pleased to find this particular site because I think in many instances it will help me understand word usage much better. However, in some, as in the case of *impiegare*, it's not entirely helpful.  Tatoeba relies on crowd sourcing and individuals to share knowledge, so you have to rely on the wisdom (or lack thereof ) of others. This is what I found when I put the word into search in Tatoeba: [![tatoeba](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/tatoeba.jpg)](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/tatoeba.jpg)   There were 64 results, and most of them were similar. Only one gave me an example of the VERB *impiegare*  in the context of spending time to do something. Instead I learned something else, which fortunately proved to be valuable.  All of those results were of the NOUN* impiego*, which means employment or job. And if most of those 64 results were about the noun, then I can infer that using *impiegare* in other ways may not be as common as a verb such as *trascorrere* which can also mean to spend or pass time. It also gave me a bunch of possibilities of how to use the noun when talking about jobs or job hunting. In short, I will still need the advice of a native speaker on this one to be sure how to best use* impiegare* (or the similar reflexive verb* impiegarsi)*, but using Tatoeba gave me some very valuable information that will help inform how/if I will use the verb, at least while I'm still learning. Give it a whirl. 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