to look
to seem
to appear
Structure
- Verb[ て ] + みえる
- Verb+ よう/みたい + にみえる
- いAdj[ く ] + みえる
- いAdj[ そう ] + に みえる
- なAdj + にみえる
- Noun + (のよう/みたい)・にみえる
[conjecture/guess・based only on visual cues・some confidence]
Hi, I am having some trouble understanding how to combine にみえる with みたい. They both express similar concepts based on visual cues but with a different degree of confidence.
So, for example, in the sentence:
あのビルは病院みたいに見えるけど、病院じゃないって
The に見える looks to me a bit redundant, what is the added nuance compared to:
あのビルは病院みたいだけど、病院じゃないって
Many thanks
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Hey 
あのビルは病院みたいに見えるけど、病院じゃないって
あのビルは病院みたいだけど、病院じゃないって
Mean basically the same (and many might use them interchangeably), though the first sentence implies that the judgment is based on direct visual observation, external appearance, etc while the second one means that the judgment might be based on the visual observation but it doesn’t have to be so. It might be based on something else. In other words, みたい is a more general expression, and みたいにみえる、ようにみえる more specific and have a strong nuance of direct observation.
By the way, some Japanese might also feel that speaker when using みたいだ is more certain than when using みたいにみえる because of だ which is used in statements/declarations. Though I don’t think that most feel that way.
I hope it makes it a bit more clear,
Cheers
2 Likes
Spotted what may or may not be an error
彼女は幸せそうにみえる。
幸せ is a な adjective, and the guide doesn’t mention anything about using そう after a な adjective. So one or the other is a bit off if I’m not mistaken
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Hey!
@Enecororo
Thank you for spotting it! 
I have added なAdjective + そうに見える to the structure section
Cheers!
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This is presumably tied to the previous two posts, but I’ve got
綺麗(きれい) にみえる けど、近(ちか)くで見(み)たら汚(よご)れている。
and I tried そうにみえる as in the guidance but it wasn’t accepted. Is that as it should be? If so, when can そう be used?
@CrisH Hey! I apologize for the confusion. 綺麗そうにみえる should have been an acceptable answer for this review question. I have updated the review question to accept そうにみえる as an answer. Please note that な-Adjective + そうにみえる is far less common in spoken language than な-Adjective + にみえる. Cheers!
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Thanks. It did occur to me, probably after I asked, that な-adjectives are often used as adverbs with に generally, so I should be able to remember that!
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The grammar point web page says
［い］Adjective［い］+ そうに(2) + みえる
Which looks like to me that you just drop off the い for those adjectives and insert みえる
BUT at the top of this forum post it says
- いAdj[ く ] + みえる
Which means you’d just change the い to く which I think is correct.
Because it’s needed to answer this question:
このスーツケースは軽くみえる。
With 軽い being an い Adj
So unless I’m seeing something wrong I think you guys need to edit the grammar point on the web page. Because currently it doesn’t look like it tells you the correct way to answer that sentence.
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yeah. I’m running to this as well. 周りの商品が高いから、これは安く見える requires く but it’s very much unclear front the explanation.
I have the same problem understanding why the answer of “周りの商品が高いから、これは安く見える”
is 安く見える
and why
安そうに見える
is not accepted as answer, saying “Can you shorten your answer?”
There is no explanation about the differences between the two.
Hey there @Inounx !
The translations for 安く見える and 安そうに見える are very close in English, but there is a difference in nuance between these two.
The sentence using 安く見える has the nuance of ‘Because the products around this one is all expensive, it makes this one look cheap (even though it’s not actually that cheap)’. ex: $200 a night for a hotel is expensive, but if all the other hotels around it charge $700 a night, the $200 hotel ‘seems’ cheap.
The sentence using 安そうに見える has the nuance of ‘Because the products around this one is all expensive, they make this one look like it might be cheap’ (the Japanese sentence sounds a bit unnatural, 周りの商品が高そうだから、これは安そうにみえる would sound more natural). Because そう is used here, we can see that the speaker is assuming that this product might be cheap because it appears cheaper than the pricier/expensive looking options around it. In this sentence, everything is assumption based, while the first sentence is based on information you have.
I hope that this clears it up!
3 Likes
Why is that variant with く only briefly mentioned by single reference and no text in the main entry? This just trips person seeing the sentence for the first time…