taishite

I want to know how to accurately use 〜に対して. It literally translates as "to" in English... but it doesn't seem to be used the same way.

Is it the same/similar to 〜には/〜にとって?
私には息子がいる。

Thanks for reading!

- Sensei ni taishite wa, teinei ni hanashimasu. (I/we speak politely to our teacher.)

- Kinou gakkou ni taishite kurasu no henkou kibou wo dashimashita (Yesterday I submitted a request of class change to my school.)

- Nihon seifu wa Amerika seifu ni taishite kyouryoku wo yousei shita. (The Japanese government requested US government for cooperation.)

....As you can see, this "... ni taishite" has a clear indication of some action/movement towards another, at times implying an action you take "facing" someone. In that sense it is similar to "to" or "toward," but it would be better not to rely on word-to-word translation, because words often don't really exactly match between English and Japanese.

There is another meaning to this "... ni taishite," where it's almost like "as compared to..." "opposing," etc., when you make a contrast.

On the other hand, this "(person) ni wa (family members, etc.) ga imasu" is a standing expression for saying "(somebody) has/have (family members, etc.)," so this is a good one for memorizing :)

thanks so much, AK. Just one more question. Is there a difference between には and にとって？　Or are they the same?

They are not the same... Let me list some examples with "... ni totte (wa)."

(A 50-year old woman talking about a young friendly guy in the neighborhood)
- Kare wa watashi ni totte wa musuko no you na mono desu. (He is, to me, something like my own son.)

(A girl yelling at her boyfriend who just misbehaved...)
- Anata ni totte watashi wa nan na no yo!? (What the h... am I to you? = Do I mean anything to you?)

- Kyoto wa watashi no kokoro no furusato desu. Anata ni totte, Kyoto wa donna imi ga arimasu ka? (To me Kyoto is where I feel I belong. To YOU, what does Kyoto mean?)

... you can tell there is a clear sense of "position" "from someone's perspective" kind of meaning in this :)