Did I interpret this そうになる correctly


For context: This is the last sentence in a small story about a man who has 2
boys in his neighbourhood which look very smilar to each other. He now tells
us about the consequences of this:

> でも、二人は顔も髪型もそっくりなので、いまでもうっかり太郎君を次郎君と呼んだり、次郎君を太郎君と呼んだりしてしまい **そうになる** 。

First, my translation:

> However, because the two, Tarou and Jirou, completely look alike, even now
> **I become** regrettably calling Tarou Jirou and Jirou Tarou.

I would usually interpret this X (Verb, adj etc.) そうに V like

> 楽しそうに遊びます。  
>  "Someone plays happily"

However, なる after そうに seems to make this way of interpretation impossible.
"someone happily becomes" still makes some sense, although the object of this
"to become" seems to be missing.

Also, if I follow the grammatical explanations from my textbook, this "...そうに
Verb " further determines the verb following そうに. I think I already
encountered such a case with そうになる in the past and it still confuses me a lot.
Especially in the case in question, I just can't muster the understanding how
this "I regrettably interchange their names" can further determine the process
"to become". It feels overly complicated to me which is why I fear that I
misunderstood something. Even more so because the translation I did above
feels like it doesn't even reflect this concept: "to become regrettably doing
X" doesn't seem to further determine "to become". "to regrettably doing X
become" would reflect it, but it is ungrammatical. So I can't even think of a
grammatical translation reflecting the concept I'm assuming we have here Oo ^^




「そうになる」 should not be translated literally, because this is a grammar
construct that means "almost". For example:

> 風邪を引きそうになった。

This means "I almost caught a cold". So the action doesn't actually happen, it
**almost** happens.

That means that in your sentence, he regrets **almost** calling the boys by
wrong names. Probably he still has those unconscious urges to call the boys
incorrectly.




「そうになる」 should not be translated literally, because this is a grammar
construct that means "almost". For example:

> 風邪を引きそうになった。

This means "I almost caught a cold". So the action doesn't actually happen, it
**almost** happens.

That means that in your sentence, he regrets **almost** calling the boys by
wrong names. Probably he still has those unconscious urges to call the boys
incorrectly.

