Question about するの

Question

I translaed the first line of しろくまカフェ to:

笹{ささ}を 食{た}べながらのんびりするのは 最高{さいこう}だなあ

Eating bamboo while relaxing is the best

But there are a couple of particles that I wasn't quite sure of. Any advice would be much appreciated.

1. するの: I understand that のんびり is a so-called "する verb", so this takes する at the end to turn it into a verb, but what role does the の particle play here? I normally undersatnd it to be the possessive (mine, his, yours etc) but does it play a different role here?

Answer 1

In this case, it turns the verb into a noun. In order to comment on the nature of the activity of eating bamboo while lying around, you first have to turn it into a noun phrase, and の does that here.

こと can be used to create noun phrases as well, but there are cases where they are not interchangeable.

I recommend reading the imabi article on the subject.