先生に許可をもらって早退しました。
if this were
先生から許可をもらって早退しました。

Would it significantly change the meaning (or make it incorrect)?

No, those are the same. I've seen the claim that に is more common.

Chris,

Thanks! I thought it had something to do with sea food, but as usual, I tried to make it more complicated than just a list.

Tomehane Ep.1

"Evil" girl says to a group:
それに比べて　何？ あんたたちんとこ。
translated as:
So what YOU you have to compare it with?

In other instance, same situation:
あんたんとこ　よく　こんな 小学生みたいな作品　出すよね。
translated:
You guys really are exhibiting stuff that's work like that of an elementary schooler!

My question is about that んとこ, is it just some sort of derogatory slang or is it something else? Couldn't find anything on concrete on JDIC, Google, goo or even DoIJG.

Is it just slang for のところ？

It's an abbreviation of のところ.

edit: beaten to it!

is there any thing on line be it in Japanese or English that tells you this? Like a dictionary of Japanese slang.

Edit: found this: http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch/0/0ss/106873500000/

It's not really a 'dictionary' matter in this case, it's simply recognize ん as short for の.

とこ is colloquial, but has a dictionary entry.
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8...x=13286300

Learning the common contractions is important, but I've picked them up from across many resources and can't think of a central place to study that in particular. Searching ALC and Tatoeba is always good if you have a confusing pattern, though - if you see the translation contractions often become obvious.

師走（しわす）
How often have people encountered this word? A google search only finds me about 12M hits which is not a lot. EDICT says its an obsolete word, yet its in the core6k. I'm considering suspending it since it seems so obscure and the character semantic meaning makes no sense for the meaning (December). I don't want it polluting my stats and wasting my time.

vix86 Wrote:師走（しわす）
How often have people encountered this word? A google search only finds me about 12M hits which is not a lot. EDICT says its an obsolete word, yet its in the core6k. I'm considering suspending it since it seems so obscure and the character semantic meaning makes no sense for the meaning (December). I don't want it polluting my stats and wasting my time.

That word is on my desk as we speak, haha.

I still have my 2011 calendar sitting around in the corner of my desk, since I haven't got a new one yet. It says "十二月 December 師走" at the top. しわす is written above 師走 as ふりがな.

But, you don't really need to know it. It's kind of like the fancy version of numbers--you don't really need to know them for everyday life, but you 'see em every once in a while in fancy situations (with the numbers, mostly when writing money amounts on gift envelopes). Obviously, 壱 and 弐 are inclued in RTK, so most people here know at least those two

vix86 Wrote:師走（しわす）
How often have people encountered this word? A google search only finds me about 12M hits which is not a lot. EDICT says its an obsolete word, yet its in the core6k. I'm considering suspending it since it seems so obscure and the character semantic meaning makes no sense for the meaning (December). I don't want it polluting my stats and wasting my time.

Never seen it before; it seems unlikely to be useful unless you read old books or very serious historical fiction, except that it shows up in the Progressive dictionary as a synonym for December so it may be used in some year-end/new year terms. Progressive's got a lot of entries, but generally excludes truly obsolete words.
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8...x=02110800
It's also the root word for a number of words in 大辞泉.

Tzadeck Wrote:That word is on my desk as we speak, haha.

I still have my 2011 calendar sitting around in the corner of my desk, since I haven't got a new one yet. It says "十二月 December 師走" at the top. しわす is written above 師走 as ふりがな.

But, you don't really need to know it. It's kind of like the fancy version of numbers--you don't really need to know them for everyday life, but you 'see em every once in a while in fancy situations (with the numbers, mostly when writing money amounts on gift envelopes). Obviously, 壱 and 弐 are inclued in RTK, so most people here know at least those two

Ah that makes sense. The only time I have ever seen the old number kanji has been in Fatal Frame. I take it these are the kanji they used to represent the numbers prior to introducing arabic numbers? Did the 零壱弐 originate from Chinese originally, compared to 一二三四?　Same thing with the months, like 師走?

vix86 Wrote:Did the 零壱弐 originate from Chinese originally, compared to 一二三四?　Same thing with the months, like 師走?

"師走" is a Japanese only thing - no origin in Chinese.

零, 壱, 弐 （贰） and so on are used in banking/financial situations, and yes, they originated in China. The characters are generally complex and distinct enough from each other that you can't simply change a stroke here or there to get another numeral. Compare instead adding a horizontal stroke to 一 to get 二, for example.

I've only seen it in Genji; these month names occur occasionally in modern Japanese but I've never seen しわす in modern.

For instance, from Genji:
うち泣きつつ過ぐすほどに、師走にもなりぬ。 (modern: 泣き泣き過ごしているままに、師走になった。）
師走の二十日余りのほどに、中宮まかでさせたまひて (modern: 師走の二十日ごろ、秋好中宮が（奈良に）いらっしゃいまして）

Seems out of place in a "core 6000" deck.

I get the idea but I just can't come up with an English translation that works…

この本を読む皆さんへ夢のために頑張り続ける。

1) My dream is that everyone works hard to read this book.

2) That everyone keeps working hard to read this book is my dream.

To everyone who reads this book -- continue to work hard for (towards) your dreams.

i think it's:
To everyone who reads this book, i'll keep fighting to fulfill (my) dreams.

この本を読む皆さん　　 へ 夢のため 頑張り続ける
everyone who reads this book to　　for (my) dreams　(I)'ll keep 頑張るing.


edit: Yudan is probably correct, as my and I was an assumption on my part.

@nadiatims Isn't that such an odd thing to say? fighting for my dreams in the context of a small blurb of introductory text to a 1st grade students book.

The whole thing is:

この本を読む皆さんへ夢のために頑張り続ける。それまで無かったものを作り出す。本当にいた、すごい人の、わくわくどきどきするお話を読みましょう。

I have read that december is 師走 because it's the last month before the new year -- hence all the priests are running around trying to make preparations.

(I agree that the old names of the months are an obscure thing very few people really need to know.)

@turvy

yeah it's an odd thing to say I guess. But sometimes people say odd things. If you don't post the context it's kind of ambiguous who the subject is in that sentence. Now you post the context, I'm pretty sure both the first sentences are actually talking about the character of the book.

この本を読む皆さんへ夢のために頑張り続ける。それまで無かったものを作り出す。本当にいた、すごい人の、わくわくどきどきするお話を読みましょう。

to everyone who reads this book, (a person who) continues to fight for (their) dream. (a person who) creates/does something never before done/created. Let's read n exciting and thrilling story about an amazing person who was really there (in the place, at ground zero or whatever).

More elegantly

Let's read an exciting and thrilling story about an amazing person who was really there, and who continues to fight for their dreams and create/do something new.

Mmm, I think I get it now. What about:

この本を読む皆さんへ
To those reading this book
(To the readers of this book)

夢のために頑張り続ける。それまで無かったものを作り出す。To keep fighting for your dreams until you can do what hasn't been done before.

本当にいた、すごい人の、わくわくどきどきするお話を読みましょう。
Let's read a story of the amazing people that did this.
(Of the really amazing people who accomplished this, let's read their story.)

No, I agree with nadiatims's interpretation where 夢のために頑張り続ける and それまで無かったものを作り出す are clauses that modify 本当にいた、すごい人. It's unusual for a clause to keep going past the sentence boundary, but it's more unusual for a present-tense sentence to be an imperative unless it's followed by んだ or something like that.

It's from this book http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/40520...00_details

A compilation of mini biographies about these remarkable people the author talks about in the blurb.

What I wrote: "To keep fighting for your dreams until you can do what hasn't been done before."

By "your dreams" I mean that impersonally, "one's dreams" and not the reader's dreams, the subject/s are the characters of the different stories. I agree with nadiatims' interpretation as well.

Is the punctuation in the original or did you add it (it's very odd for that へ to just continue into the next word without a line break, comma, or period)? I like nadiatims' second post the best as far as the meaning.

To me it makes more sense as:
この本を読む皆さんへ
夢のために頑張り続ける、それまで無かったものを作り出す、本当にいた、すごい人の、わくわくどきどきするお話を読みましょう。

But even if it's not like that the periods may be for emphasis rather than end-of-sentence...punctuation isn't always consistent in Japanese.

I haven't edited any of the original posts. If I were to translate it now, I would say:

この本を読む皆さんへ
To the readers:

夢のために頑張り続ける。それまで無かったものを作り出す。
本当にいた、すごい人の、わくわくどきどきするお話を読みましょう。
Let's read a story about really amazing people that kept fighting for their dreams until the did what was never done before.


EDIT: I see what you mean. In the book there is a line break after へ. So it should have been obvious to the experienced reader, (not me).