focused on
centered on/around
mainly
most notably
Structure
- Noun + を中心に / を中心に して / を中心 として
- Noun1 + を中心に した / を中心 とした + Noun2
[Aを中心に is used to express that A is a center of something in the physical or metaphorical sense]
What does that mean?
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Matt on Game Gengo just posted a video on this grammar.
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The current translation for
健康診断に行ったら先生に揚げ物を中心とする食生活はやめるようにと言われた
is slightly incorrect and doesn’t help accurately interpret the difference in nuance that とする infers.
Currently, “to stop centering my diet around fried food,” implies a there’s a deliberate, active effort on the part of the speaker to prioritise fried food. However, を中心とする is used here because the sentence is describing a general characteristic of the diet (it naturally revolves around fried food), not an intentional action of making fried food the focus.
Therefore, a more accurate and helpful translation would be "When I went to my physical check-up, my doctor told me to stop having a diet that is centered on fried food."
I was wondering this as well. Based on the use of 進行中 in the Japanese, I’m thinking they may be meaning to suggest scenarios where something has come to be the case without any deliberate attempt, while I would venture to guess that the ‘essential’ translation of 重要 is being mixed up with the meaning of the English word ‘essential’ that corresponds to ‘inherent’. And I think identifying ‘conclusive’ and ‘decisive’ as significantly different meanings may just be a simple misunderstanding.
So, I think what it’s trying to say is “This change gives a nuance that points to the focus being the result of a concious decision rather than a passive eventuality or an inherent property.” But that is pretty much a guess.
In the recent feedback survey I mentioned that I think (based on my limited Japanese) that the Japanese is frequently better than the English. It makes sense of course, since it’s not an English learning tool, but it does need to be clear or you can’t really learn from it.
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