Bilingual dictionaries containing information in which context one can use a translation

When learning new languages I realized that I spent the most time on finding out in which context a word in the TL can be used or in which context a translation of the word in the TL to my NL works. I give an example of what I mean:

My NL is German. One of the languages I am trying to learn is English. When I want to translate the english word "rather" into German, I would do it in the following way:

If someone wants to say that he would rather choose a certain option due to rational arguments, I would translate it with the german word "eher".

If someone wants to say that he would rather choose a certain option due to his feelings, I would translate it with the german word "lieber".

If I look up the word rather in an english <-> german dictionary, I just get the information that rather can be translated with eher, lieber and other german words. But the information what conditions the context has to fulfill so that the translation can be used is missing.

The only way I found to get information about these conditions is to either try to find information in forums, reddit or to watch movies in the TL and try to infer the information from them. But that takes a lot of time.

Does anyone have an idea how I could get the information faster? Are there good books on this? Thanks for your help.

submitted by /u/FrustratedLoser2000
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from Language Learning https://ift.tt/HVESJwA
via Learn Online English Speaking

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