I was reading this story on NHK Easy ( http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10011121361000/k10011121361000.html ) and I'm having a little trouble understanding what the Prime Ministers said.
安倍総理大臣は、ＥＵから出ても、イギリスで仕事をしている日本の会社が困らないようにしてほしいと言いました。メイ首相は「日本の会社と話をしながら、問題が出ないようにします」と言いました。
I think it's something like "Prime Minister Abe said that he hoped Japanese companies doing business in Britain would not be worried, even if Britain leaves the EU. Prime Minister May said, 'We are having talks with Japanese companies so that problems do not arise.'"
So I think I get the general idea, but I'm trying to understand why ように is used in these ways. The first sentence reads like "He wants them to do it so that they are not worried." Do what? I'm not sure what the difference is between 困らないようにしてほしい and 困らないでほしい. Is he just being less direct to be polite? Or is it because 困る is unaccusative (i.e. the subject has no volitional control over whether to do it or not), so maybe you can't directly want them not to do it? Or something else? Edit: I actually looked up ようにする as a single unit, and learned that one of its meanings is "to try to..." so maybe it's "he wants them to try not to be worried"?
In the second sentence it's more the use of ～ながら + ように ("While having talks with Japanese companies, we are doing it so that problems do not arise"). What's the difference between saying this and 問題が出ないように日本の会社と話をします? Is she maybe implying that that's one of the reasons for having the talks, but not the only one?
よろしくおねがいします、
小狼
