Dear Tae Kim, in the first section ("Expressing similarity with よう （様）") above, you state
"We've already briefly gone over 「よう」 and learned that 「よう」 means an appearance or manner."
For those of us going through your (%*&$ing awesome) guide in a non-linear manner (i.e. as a reference), it would be helpful perhaps to provide a link to the previous section you are referring to. I eventually found what you were referring to here:
You may be wondering how to use 「なる」 and 「する」 with verbs since there's no way to directly modify a verb with another verb. The simple solution is to add a generic noun such as a generic event: こと （事） or an appearance/manner: よう （様）. These nouns don't refer to anything specific and are used to describe something else. In this case, they allow us to describe verbs in the same manner as nouns. Here are some examples of how to use these generic nouns with 「する」 and 「なる」."
...anyways, maybe this will help some other folks.
Also, for some reason (Drupal's default search string length settings?), if I do a search (using the search box at the top of the page) for よう, it complains that "You must include at least one positive keyword with 3 characters or more." Seems like this is a problem with anything though, not just よう, but 行く or 来る or one-character particles or etc., all of which terms it would be useful to be able to search on.
In any case, let me take this opportunity to say that these are minor quibbles, and this site is amazing. Thank you.
Regarding よう, and general searching
Dear Tae Kim, in the first section ("Expressing similarity with よう （様）") above, you state
"We've already briefly gone over 「よう」 and learned that 「よう」 means an appearance or manner."
For those of us going through your (%*&$ing awesome) guide in a non-linear manner (i.e. as a reference), it would be helpful perhaps to provide a link to the previous section you are referring to. I eventually found what you were referring to here:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/surunaru
"Using 「なる」 and 「する」 with verbs
You may be wondering how to use 「なる」 and 「する」 with verbs since there's no way to directly modify a verb with another verb. The simple solution is to add a generic noun such as a generic event: こと （事） or an appearance/manner: よう （様）. These nouns don't refer to anything specific and are used to describe something else. In this case, they allow us to describe verbs in the same manner as nouns. Here are some examples of how to use these generic nouns with 「する」 and 「なる」."
...anyways, maybe this will help some other folks.
Also, for some reason (Drupal's default search string length settings?), if I do a search (using the search box at the top of the page) for よう, it complains that "You must include at least one positive keyword with 3 characters or more." Seems like this is a problem with anything though, not just よう, but 行く or 来る or one-character particles or etc., all of which terms it would be useful to be able to search on.
In any case, let me take this opportunity to say that these are minor quibbles, and this site is amazing. Thank you.
DD