Colloquial translation issues

[student_8]

The most difficult area of study, in my experience, is learning colloquial language. I find that this is covered extremely poorly in virtually every textbook I have ever come across. Once you start trying to read manga, you realize just how little you really know.

Now, I do not wish to be an "annoying" poster who asks a bunch of questions that have already been covered somewhere or other on the boards. However, there are a great deal of threads here and it would be difficult to trawl through every single one looking for a particular issue. What I want to ask is whether it would be acceptable to ask a question if I cannot find anything related to it using the Search facility. I have already tried entering a few expressions into the search, and most of them didn't seem to come up. Maybe I am doing somethiung wrong?

-Arch

[Hyperworm]

It can be hard to find information on slang, even with a search function at hand (which is working fine I think - I tried ちゃう).
Your questions may have been posted before, but there's nothing wrong with asking anew if you can't find answers. ^^;

(Ask in here? )

[furrykef]

Dunno about general slang, but this list of abbreviations and contractions may be helpful.

[AJBryant]

Ask away. It's what we're here for.

BTW, I am a translator. You're right -- it's not generally covered in most texts, which aim at conversation.