Potential form of verbs usage

Hi all, just came across this the other day:

Takusan benkyo shite kanji ga YOMERU (and not yomu) yo ni narimashita.
たくさん勉強してかんじがよめるようになりました。
I studied hard and became able to read kanji.


however i noticed this other sentence too:

Kenko no tame ni mainichi hachi-jikan wa NERU yo ni shite imasu.
健康のために毎日八時間は寝るよにしています。
I'm trying to sleep eight hours a day for my health.

Shouldn't we use Nerareru (寝られる) for the second sentence, since it expresses a potential to do something?

http://japanese.about.com/blverb18.htm

Since the intention is "I'm trying to/I'm making it a habit to sleep 8 hours for my health," so I don't see any "can" or "able to" in the second clause?

If you mean to say "I'm trying doing my best so that I can sleep 8 hours (despite my busy schedule)," you COULD say
健康のために、忙しくても毎日8時間は　寝られるように　しています。

But since it is more of intetion (I'm making it a rule to sleep) rather than potential (I can sleep), I feel that "寝る" simply sits better.


By the way, it should be
寝るように　しています, not 寝るよに.


Oh, this may be where you thought of it as "potential":
The first sentence says
漢字が読めるようになりました　(now I came to be able to read kanji.)
and the other sentence is
寝るようにしています (I'm trying to make it a habit to sleep...)

"...you ni narimasu" means "come to (a situation)
and
"...you ni shimasu/shiteimasu" means "I intend to..."
so they are not the same meaning.

OH i see, thanks man! :)
BY the way, i also have another problem regarding sentence structures.

"Michi ga komanai uchi ni kaerimsaho."
(let's go home before the road gets congested)

What is i wanted to add a time stamp here? (e.g ....at noon)

Would it be:
"Hiru ni michi ga komanai uchi ni kaerimasho"
OR
"Michi ga komanai uchi ni hiru ni kaerimasho."?

I know the position of the time stamp determines its emphasis in the sentence, could someone correct me?

Great thanks so far ^^

"hiru" can be kinda general.

About the sentence you've asked, I might have to rephrase it a bit because both "michi ga komanai uchi ni" and "shougo ni" are referring to time, and so it sounds somewhat redundant.

In English, you would probably write,
- Let's go home at noon, (which means) before the road gets congested.
or
- Let's go home at noon, so that we don't get caught in traffic jam.

Please think it over in English first to see what you want to say :)

Whoops, I left out one sentence at the beginning of my post. I wanted to say:

If you want to say "(exactly) at noon," I would use "shougo ni", first of all.
"hiru" is kinda general.