I'm having problems learning the usage of new words.

My Chinese grammar is very very poor
and most examples of the word usage i find on-line are useless.

Does anyone have any good websites, grammar books, ideas for learning the usage of new words?

Feels like I'm pushing marbles up a hill with a rake.

I guess that you have been using the normal ones:

http://www.nciku.com/search/all/examples/

http://tatoeba.org/eng/home

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php

http://hua.umf.maine.edu/php/search.php (here you can actually choose difficulty level for the example sentences)

Or my favorite: http://news.google.com/ Not really example sentences but more example usage. It gives your articles with the word used.

I also like the idea of fluentflix.com. Words that you mark for learning there gets linked to all the movies they have. When practicing that you will be brought a lot of movie segments with that word used with context and reinforced from a real context at your chosen level. Right now you can not search for new words but that should come they have said.

Paper dictionaries, you can never have to many... there are many with example sentences. Or Pleco for electronic versions. Very good examples.

Or good old, Chinesepod.com I like to listen to that and it gives me context.

Finally, Chinese friends. Get on line friends and chat with. There you can pick much of the usage and learn tons more.

thanks!!! there is a few sites here i dont know of but will have a look.

i just cant get used to nciku. dont know why.

i have a chinese girlfriend that cant speak english, so this helps.
but i need to sit down and study myself, then can practice.

thanks for the suggestions!!!

thedrunkpig,
My first stop to check word usage is always jukuu.com and it accepts both Chinese and English input to return sample sentences. As to the girlfriend, I have seen comments from people who learned Korean and had Korean wives that support your comment: study first and then practice. Many guys said that people would tell them "oh, your wife is Korean so you had it easy," not appreciating all the hard work they had to do studying. Another commented on the limited benefits to language study of "the black-haired dictionary."

You might want to try the book "Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar" It is designed as a study guide to be worked through, not just a reference book.

Oh, and one other thing: don't drink too much!