みたいに・みたいな - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#8

I reached out to a native for this one as there seems to be a lot of subtleties and they agreed with the BP slight distinction that みたい can a bit more visual while のよう leans towards characteristic (along with colloquial vs. more written difference). Therefore the distinction of “appearance of” and “manner of” work out well for specific instances but not confined to these meanings.

But I believe when used for meanings of “like” or “similar to” (probably the majority of the time), they are interchangeable. I could not get a distinct answer when not use “x” but must use “y” and my teacher also gave the green light to interchange them. The Maggie Sensei entry for みたい and のよう didn’t throw any exceptions either from what I skimmed with many interchangeable examples. Looks like there are times when みたい can overlap with into “seems like” or “heard” for そう・らしい a bit more though. Contrary, I could see how のよう could have more conceptual applications or be written for instruction manuals or something.

For the sentences you mention above, I see no difference in interchanging them as both based on direct information.

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#9

@Pep95 @s1212z

Hey! Sorry for the slow response :bowing_man:

I have removed that part, it was an error. みたい and よう, as you said are basically identical. The よう being more formal, and よう having some other uses like “so that”, ように祈る、ようになる、ようにする where みたい doesn’t work.

It should be something like:
みたいな、ような -> appearance of (modifying nouns)
みたいに、ように -> in the manner of (modifying adverbs, adjectives, verbs)

I am really sorry for the inconvenience it caused!

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#10

What is the difference between the two?

#11

Hey :smiley:

みたいな is adjective form (it is used to modify nouns)
みたいに is adverbial form (it is used to modify adjectives, verbs and other advers)
みたい(だ) is the predicative form used at the end of a sentence.

みたいに(and ように) is used in general to show the similarity of something to something else in appearance or in a manner of doing something.

みたい（and ようだ） also has this use + conjecture(possibility of something) (Feedback - Suggested Improvements/Feature Request)

:+1:

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#12

Thank you. It might be a good idea to add that to their respective pages.

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#13

Done :smiley:

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#14

The discussion link from みたいに should probably link here. Currently it takes to a topic on てすみません.

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#15

I will do something about it!

PS
Your avatar is actually amazing >.<

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#16

Thank you! :slight_smile:

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#17

Couldn’t this sentence be also taken as “I want to be like that woman”?

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#18

Hey and welcome on the community forums :partying_face:

てほしい is only used for what we wish/demand from other people.

So:
(あなたに)この女みたいになってほしい
I want you to become like that woman.

If you want to speak about your own wishes you have to use: たい or Nounがほしい

私はあの女の子みたいになりたい。
I want to become like that woman.

ドクロストーンがほしいよ。
I want dokuro stone(item from anime - yattaman).

I hope it helps and if you have more questions feel free to ask,
Cheers :+1:

PS
This is a bit more advanced, but interesting. てほしい is also used when we wish for some events (that are beyond speaker will) to happen, like:

雨が降って欲しい.
I wish for rain.
(lit. I wish for rain to fall)

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#19

I see, thank you!

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#20

On the main page for this it says you can get the structure Verb + みたいに, but there aren’t any examples of this form, as far as I can tell. What would that construction be used for? Would it be used to say something like “His walking is like running for other people”?

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#21

Hey :cowboy_hat_face:

Good question :+1:
We will have to add examples for this usage!

That’s right! It is used to express resemblance of something to an action described by the verb.
It is easier to understand with a vivid example:

ペンギンは鳥類だけど飛べないよ。だけどまるで空を舞っているみたいに華麗に海中を泳ぐんだ。

Penguins are birds, but can’t fly. But they splendidly swim through the oceans as if soaring (flying) through the air.

I hope it helps!
Cheers :partying_face:

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#22

Thanks :slight_smile:

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#23

There is a Japanese Ammo video for this grammar point.

She covers みたい, みたいな, みたいに, のような, のように, っぽい and らしい.

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#24

Also a 日本語の森動画

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#25

For this example, " 上手じょうずになりたいから、日本人にほんじんみたいに漢字かんじドリルをしてみる。"

The grammar says that な is used before a noun but here it is に - is this because kanji drills is a suru verb and so is treated as a verb? If so, could you perhaps note something like that on the grammar page, e.g. “look out for suru verbs as it may seem that it’s simply a noun.”

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#27

An important distinction between みたいに and みたいな is that:

  • みたいに is (like) an adverb. It modifies either an adjective or a verb and is followed by a whole clause. If it is modifying an adjective usually the adjective directly follows みたいに, but when modifying a verb there may be other things after みたいに such as a subject or direct object for the verb.

  • みたいな is in it’s attributive form. This means it must have the noun that it is modifying immediately following it.

This might not be immediately clear by just looking at the list of structures on bunpro’s page for this grammar point. When bunpro says that something can be followed by a verb usually you are able to put more than just that verb.

This means that in your example みたいに is describing する even though it isn’t directly next to it.

Note: Even though the page for this grammar point says that みたいに can be followed by Verb/い-Adjective, I can easily find people using みたいに with な adjectives.

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#28

Yep, that’s why I was confused when using just that grammar page - I saw afterwards, reading posts on this thread, why certain things were.