CONCORDANCER - These examples will help you understand.

Q. If I don't have someone to check the phrases I'm making up, how can I make make sure they sound natural?
A. Google it.

Q. If I want to know how a word is commonly used, how can I find more examples in context?
A. Google it.

OK, so you learn a new word. You're not sure how it's used. Try typing it into Google or any other search engine. You'll immediately see a large number of phrases containing that word (especially if you go into 'advanced options' and change the search language to Spanish).

Yesterday I was focussing on adjectives. If I type in apasionante (~ exciting) or estupendo (~ amazing) or crédulo (~ gullible), page upon page of search results comes up, often with sentences. And it's surprising that after browsing just a handful of pages of results, I have a fairly good idea of how to use the word and what nouns it commonly collocates with.

Type in a wrong spelling, like asquero, and it will ask you if you actually meant asqueroso (disgusting), which I did.

If I'm not sure if extender tu vocabulario sounds natural, I type it in and notice there aren't many results that show this exact phrase. So I start noticing what comes before 'tu vocabulario' in the results. Most common is 'ampliar', and also 'enriquecer'. Hence it's more natural to say ampliar tu vocabulario (expand your voacbulary) or enriquecer tu vocabulario (enrich your vocabulary).

Clever, eh?