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I am currently writing an essay for JPN 401 and I am trying to say this:

While my parents planned on how to take me to college, I was just doing things like watching YouTube videos, and just not feeling like doing things for the future.

I came up with this:

両親はどのように大学に私を連れていくかの策を練りながら、私はユーチューブでの動画を観たりしていて、ことをしておく気が向かなかった。

What I have a question on is the relative clause using か:

両親はどのように大学に私を連れていくかの策を練りながら、．．．

I have looked online and found examples of such a clause where the か would at least replace a particle in a sentence, then followed by a verb like here, but I have never found an example on how to append the か-clause to another noun like I am trying to do here. This happened again with this sentence further in the essay (here, I am talking about how the burden of taking a class falls on the student, unlike in high school):

素早く、どうして授業を取っているかの理由は理解しなくてはだめのようになる。

"Quickly, the reason why you are taking a class becomes necessary to understand."

Is what I created grammatically correct, or is there some things I need to rewrite here? Specifically, is the use of の here acceptable?

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  • What you meant by your second Japanese sentence is not clear. I would suggest you add a translation like you did for the first sentence.
    – aguijonazo
    Sep 30, 2022 at 22:49
  • Thank you; I realized in making a translation that one nuance of the Japanese version did not match the English one, so I added のようになる to convey something becomes some clause.
    – BigRigz
    Sep 30, 2022 at 22:56

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どのように〜するかの策 is grammatically correct but sounds a bit clumsy. It would sound more natural if you removed の and let the clause ending with か modify the verb. (Not completely sure how it is explained grammatically, but I think it's working as an adverb.)

どのように私を大学に連れていくか策を練る

私を大学に連れていく sounds more natural than 大学に私を連れていく to me. Either way, it is most likely understood as meaning the parents will physically take the child to the college. It might not be what you meant.

Alternatively, you can say 私を大学に連れていく策 or 私を大学に連れていくための策.

I would leave どのように in this particular case for its emphasizing effect. いかに would sound more dramatic.

両親がどのように私を大学に連れていくか策を練る一方、私はユーチューブで動画を観たりしていて、将来のために何かをする気にならなかった。

ながら is normally used for a parallel action by the same agent. I would say either 策を練る一方 or 策を練る中 here.

どうして〜するかの理由 sounds even more awkward than どのように〜するかの策 for some reason I can’t quite pinpoint. It could be that the pair of どうして and 理由 sounds more redundant.

Here again, you can simply say 授業を取っている理由.

If you want to leave どうして, you can make the clause that begins with it (and ends with か) a direct object of 理解する.

すぐに、どうして授業を取っている（の）かを理解しなければならなくなる。

素早く is used for an action that is taken quickly. すぐに seems more appropriate in this context.

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  • Thank you; you offered far more help than I would have expected.
    – BigRigz
    Oct 1, 2022 at 0:44
  • @BigRigz - About ようになる, it is used when the post-change state is described with a verb, like 〜するようになる. With a noun like だめ, you should say だめになる. However, this sounds colloquial. 理解しなければならない sounds more formal, while 理解しなくてはいけない sounds only slightly less so. Though ない is part of a verb, it works like an い-adjective. Hence 〜なくなる.
    – aguijonazo
    Oct 1, 2022 at 4:08

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