みたいに・みたいな - Grammar Discussion

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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Thanks :slight_smile:

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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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Also a 日本語の森動画

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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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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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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.