Postby thegooseking » February 10th, 2017 3:26 pm
Dirk-san,
許す can mean either 'permit' or 'forgive', and choosing the right one is really down to context. I think a lot of the time it'll be down to the tense of the verb that is being forgiven/permitted. You can't, after all, forgive something that someone hasn't done yet, nor can you permit them to do something they've already done (at least, unless you're a judge or similar, who might say "I'll allow it" in response to something someone's already said).
Here are a couple example sentences I've taken from jisho.org:-
約束を破った事を許してください。- yakusoku wo yabutta koto wo yurushite kudasai - "Please forgive me for breaking my promise."
Notice that 破った is in the past tense, so 許す must mean 'forgive'.
母は私が海外に行くのを許した。- haha wa watashi ga kaigai ni iku no wo yurushita - "My mother allowed me to go abroad."
Here, we think that 許す means 'allow' because 行く is in the present tense.
That's okay if you're allowing or forgiving verbs, but what about nouns? It's not quite so straightforward, but again, it's down to context, and I think the difference between forgiving and allowing nouns is probably less strong than the difference between forgiving and allowing verbs anyway, isn't it?
小狼
