としてas (a role or capacity)
として names the role or capacity someone or something acts in: as an engineer, as a friend, as a market, as a hobby.
a person's role
I work as an engineer in Tokyo.
a thing's use
This square is used as a market on weekends.
How to form it
Noun + として
It goes straight onto the noun that names the role.
Before a noun
Noun + としての + noun
親としての責任, your responsibility as a parent.
A person's role
A job, a position or a relationship: 医者, 代表, 親, 友人. It is neutral. You'll use it to say what you work as, and hear it all the time in the news and at work.
Mr. Tanaka attended the meeting as an interpreter.
I am speaking honestly to you as a friend.
She feels her responsibility as a doctor keenly.
What a thing serves as
With 使う, 考える or 知られる, it says what something is used as, treated as or known as. The same goes for what you do something as: 趣味として, as a hobby.
This old station building is used as a tourist information center.
Please treat this figure only as a rough guide.
I'm learning the piano as a hobby.
Among friends, more often 趣味で.
A few are fixed phrases: 結果として (as a result), 原則として (as a rule), 例として (as an example).
Not every "as"
English "as" also means "when I was" and "like". として means neither: it is a role someone really holds.
Not said: 子どもとして、
(As a child, I often played in the river.)
"When I was a child" is 子どものころ.
He spoke like a father.
He isn't. He only sounded like one.
について, にとって or として?
All three follow a noun and are easy to mix up. The same noun, three ways:
The teacher talked about the international students.
What you talk, think, write or ask about.
For international students, keigo is one of the tougher challenges.
Whose point of view a judgment is made from. A judgment follows: hard, important, necessary.
She came to Japan as an international student.
The role or capacity someone or something acts in: she is a student herself.
Close neighbours
に対してN3
Who or what an attitude, a reply or an action is aimed at. Strict as a parent is 親として; strict with your parents is 親に対して.
This teacher is strict with international students too.
としてはN2
With は it gives a view from that role (私としては, "for my part"), or measures something against what is usual: "heavy for a travel camera".
This camera is a little heavy for a travel camera.
（よ）うとするN3
After a verb like 行こう or 出かけよう, として is something else: about to, or trying to.
Just as I was about to go out, I noticed I didn't have my keys.
Check yourself
1Which one fits?
姉は
Choose an answer to see why.
2"As a child, I was afraid of dogs."
Choose an answer to see why.
More sentences
My older brother attended the meeting with the school as the guardian.
His experience as a company employee is useful in his current job.
This cloth is used as material for curtains.
That remark was taken as a personal opinion.
As a rule, bookings cannot be canceled.