What does そうとしてみる mean?


From the song: 金木犀の夜

> 声が聴きたくなって  
>  電話番号を思い出 **そうとしてみる**

I'm wondering if it can mean "I'll try to remember the phone number, then look
(if I remembered)", cause that's what my intuition tells me right now, but I'm
asking to be sure if that's eally it.




My answer is really just an extension of [this
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/19040/7705) as it is applied to
your sentence. For further details, please see that answer.

In short, `しようとする` and `してみる` mean very different things - the former means
`attempt to X` and the latter corresponds to the English `do X and see`, as in
doing something and then reflecting on the result.

Consequently, a very direct translation of `電話番号を思い出そうとしてみる` looks something
like `I will try to remember the phone number and see how it goes` where `try
to` comes from `思い出そうとする` and `see how it goes` comes from `してみる`.

Incidentally, there's no way to know without more context from the song, but I
suspect this is [historical
present](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/73870/7705) tense, in which case
it's really talking about something that has already happened.




My answer is really just an extension of [this
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/19040/7705) as it is applied to
your sentence. For further details, please see that answer.

In short, `しようとする` and `してみる` mean very different things - the former means
`attempt to X` and the latter corresponds to the English `do X and see`, as in
doing something and then reflecting on the result.

Consequently, a very direct translation of `電話番号を思い出そうとしてみる` looks something
like `I will try to remember the phone number and see how it goes` where `try
to` comes from `思い出そうとする` and `see how it goes` comes from `してみる`.

Incidentally, there's no way to know without more context from the song, but I
suspect this is [historical
present](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/73870/7705) tense, in which case
it's really talking about something that has already happened.

