So, you probably know the word ‘として’, right? The way that I’ve taught myself to treat it as is a word for ‘and’, generally used between switching topics or points.
But I recently found in some example sentences on Jisho (jisho.org) the word ‘とした’… I became a little confused, thought about it for a second, and realized it’s connected to or similar in word origin to として, with the dictionary form of this verb format(?) as ‘とする’… But I’m thinking again one last time, then remember the grammar point ‘<volitional form of verb> + とする’
…
Someone please explain what this is and how all of these are connected or should be understood as, thanks! ^^
Edit: Just after posting this initially, I remembered there is also ‘としよう’, but I’m assuming this is literally nothing more than a volitional form use of the とする grammar point…, unless it’s not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5 comments
Not sure what your question is but としてmeans “as” not “and”
For example 先生として時々厳しくならなきゃ
Why do you think a user on Reddit can explain this better than the hundreds of websites and videos that have already been made about this topic?
E: This sub man. Why do people enjoy writing walls of texts about topics already covered everywhere on the internet? You’re wasting your time and encouraging laziness …
『 』とする
Do ‘like’. Do you ‘doing like ___’. Like you’re a kid ‘doing like’ godzilla in the playground. It’s a little abstract but it is basically making a motion to do or to ‘make like you are doing’.
As in you’re making a motion to do the thing in quotation marks marked by the と. If you’re “doing ‘like’” on a volitional word like 行こう (let’s go), it is like you’re “doing like your will to ‘verb’”. Your will is like a locked in notion but your ‘doing like blah’ is kind of not. You are doing like committing. An attempt. You are “trying”. So many acrobatics to get to this concept of “attempt” or “try” in English. I am sure Japanese think that having a formal word like the way we do being the most common grammatical way of expressing this idea is quite abstract and alien to them.
として-do like’___’. I like to just lump this one as a fixed expression to mean “in the role of” or “as”. Much easier than to do the mental gymnastics I did above.
These are the ways I think of these things, at least. Good luck.
tbh maybe i didn’t understand your question or confusion or i just am unable to translate this directly into English but I’m pretty sure とする quite different from the ” として ” as in “ as- something something ” kinda expression. As for とする there can be some examples i can think of where you can even see a form of it as “ として(る) ” but it is nothing similar to the “ as ” expression for example.
これ以上何を推薦しようとしてるの❓
( what else are you trying to recommend to me ? ) « trying to recommend » here , in its present continuous form “としてる” however quite informal! you may change it into the としているの or としているんですか？
similarly in another example
なんのために自分磨きしようとしてるの❓
What are you trying to improve yourself for?
« trying to improve » present continuous form again !
actually I’d recommend you watching this video where they will explain to the Grammer point ” trying to do something ” if you understand somewhat japanese this might be helpful because me explaining here is just a plain wall of incomprehensible text sometimes
https://youtu.be/NR1kCcNAZiQ
I’ll just give you one last Example where we may use とする as well !
いつもは諦めていることをちゃんと話そうとすると酔っ払ってるって言われます
whenever i try to open up and talk to someone about me giving up, im told that I’m drunk
« try to open up and talk » ( not literally translated just to give you an idea )
again! this とする can change it’s form and is usually seen in these sorts of expressions where you’re trying to do something. Other than that i can think of this ;
好きなキャラをディスられるともやっとする
it’s annoying ( I’m annoyed ) when people disrespect a character i like
« モヤッとする »
I think you’re trying to find a pattern where there isn’t any.