Changing States: ようにする/なる

We met the adverbial noun よう previously when we looked at ways to express similarity in Japanese. Its other grammatical usage is to express a change of state from A to B.

Essentially all we are doing is modifying the adverbial noun よう to describe the “state” or “condition” and then appending the verb “to become” to express the change.

While not grammatically incorrect this structure is rarely ever used with the negative. Instead, the negative verb is treated as as an i-adjective, turned into an adverb, and appended with the verb “to become”.

よう very often used with the potential form of the verb to express that someone has “become able to do” something.

The literal translation “to become to be able to” does not always sound natural in English; whereas the Japanese grammar makes clear that there has been a change of state.

And remember that よう is an adverbial noun so we can modify other nouns with the な particle as we would with a na-adjective.

However, this structure cannot be used with the negative. As we have seen before, the final い of the standard negative form of the verb is treated as an i-adjective, turned into an adverb, and appended with the verb “to become”.

よう can also be used with verbs other than なる. This way we can show that a change was instigated by someone (as opposed to it being a natural consequence of an event).

With the negative we must use the structure with よう.

Note how we can change the ending verb to make more complex sentences.