nihongo wo benkyou shitai

日本語：	[noun] にする
English:	Decide on...

Back in August we covered ことにする which, following a verb in bases 1 or 3, means to decide upon some action. Today we'll look at it's counterpart for nouns. A word of caution though; にする also has another meaning which is entirely different, so when you see にする used you'll have to rely on the context to determine whether it means decide on or change into.

English:	It was difficult to choose but I've decided on the steak.
Jenglish:	[choose][difficult][but][steak][decided]
日本語：	比べるのは難しいですがステーキにしました。

English:	Despite the fact that it was expensive, she decided on the Prada handbag.
Jenglish:	[fact][expensive][despite][she][Prada handbag][decided]
日本語：	事実は高いのに、彼女はプラダのかばんにしました。

じゃあ、今日の点はインタネットに調べよう！

例文１：

This example comes from a somewhat girly site - the kind I don't frequent... honest!!

日本語：	間接照明だけだと暗い感じになるかなぁと思ってシャンデリアにしました。
Jenglish:	[indirect lighting] [only] [if] [gloomy] [feeling/impression] [become] [I wonder] [I think] [and] [chandelier] [decided on]

Umm... well on the face of it, it seems pretty straight-forward, the only thing that confuses me is the use of かなぁ and と思う together. That's like saying 'I think I wonder...' which doesn't really work. However, my Japanese friend pointed out that it is OK to use かなぁと思う as another way of saying I wonder. So, my translation is: If there were only indirect lighting, I wondered that it would be gloomy and so I decided on a chandelier.

例文２：

Here's another from some geeky site.

日本語：	コロンブスの卵「思い切ってシリコンHDDという名前にしました」
Jenglish:	[Columbus' Egg] [bravely] [silicon] [HDD] [called] [name] [decided on]

Well, this one turned out to be educational - in both English history and Japanese! The first bit was a show-stopper in terms of understanding. A Google search revealed the history behind the great explorer's egg story, but I couldn't see how it was related to the next bit. The second, less difficult, issue was the use of 思い切って. According to Jim Breen, 思い切って is translated as resolutely, which really didn't make much sense. So I trawled through a couple of paper dictionaries and discovered a translation of bravely. Both of these issues were cleared up by a Japanese friend who confirmed that in this case bravely was correct and also helped me understand why Columbus' Egg was relevant here. Apparently it can be used as a means of saying 'to think outside the box'. Ahhh.....

So, after much education, I'm translating this as Thinking outside the box: bravely decided on the name Silicon HDD and it refers to Buffalo's decision to re-brand USB pen drives as 'Silicon HDDs'. Why is this brave? If you can guess, leave a comment!!

またね・・・