Structure
Verb + とみえる
[い]Adjective + とみえる
[な]Adjective + (だ) + とみえる
Noun + (だ) + とみえる
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Standard
About とみえる
とみえる (primarily written only in hiragana) is a phrase that combines the case marking particle と, with the る-Verb見える 'to appear', or 'to be visible'.
This use of the と particle in Japanese is called a result, and marks when (A) is something that has come to a conclusion, or can be concluded. In this way とみえる literally means 'from the way it appears, one can conclude that it's (A)'. However, this translates a bit more smoothly as 'it can be deduced that (A)', or 'it seems that (A)'.
This expression is always used directly after the phrase that it is drawing as a conclusion. However, nouns and な-Adjectives will require だ before とみえる.
While this phrase is conjecture (making a guess about something), it usually implies that the speaker has done some sort of research, or has some reason that led them to 'draw (A) as a conclusion'. Due to this, it appears reasonably confident.
Fun Fact
と always 'sums up' things. As a quotation, it sums up the phrase before it as either something that was said, or thought. As 一緒 'being together', it sums up groups of things that are existing/performing actions mutually. Lastly, as a result, it sums up causes, and then illustrates their effects.
Related
Examples
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あの親は優しいとみえる。
Those parents seem nice.
家に行ったけど留守と見えた。
I went to their house, but it seemed that they weren't home.
彼はマラソンを走ったと見えてハアハア言っている。
It seems that he ran a marathon, he is breathing heavily.
テストに落ちたから、勉強してなかったと見える。
Since he failed the test, one can conclude that he did not study.
水と見えたが、ラムネでした。
It seemed that it was water, but it was lemon soda. (One can conclude that)
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とみえる
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とみえる – Grammar Discussion
Most Recent Replies (17 in total)
Pushindawood
it seems that, it can be deduced, one can conclude that
Structure
・Verb + とみえる
・Noun + とみえる
・いAdj + とみえる
・なAdj + とみえる[Conjecture/guess・based on some information, often visual ・some confidence]
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veryslowlearner
A Japanese guy told me にみえる is pretty uncertain, so presumably the と is doing something here to make it more certain, as if it is quoting some observation or knowledge?
mrnoone
Hey
It is because it is most of the time used with some basis for reasoning. Like:
テスト落たから、勉強してなかった と見みえる 。
Since he failed the test, one can conclude that he did not study.テスト落たから is our factual ground in this case.
veryslowlearner
What exactly does the と do?
mrnoone
It means “that”.
veryslowlearner
cheers for that!
LilianC
Why the て in 彼(かれ)はマラソンを走(はし)った と みえて ハアハアが言(い)っている ?
eefara
Looks like it’s using て to connect the two thoughts- “it looks like he ran a marathon” (彼はマラソンを走った) and “he is breathing heavily” (ハアハア言っている). Presumably the latter would be a reason for the former as visual evidence.
On an unrelated note, I wanted to ask why the grammar point is introduced as とみえる, but all of the sentences use 見; seems strange not to introduce it as と見える.
Edit: Aaaand one more question: on that final example sentence, how is 終わらせてなかった conjugated? It looks like 終わる is being put into causative form here, which doesn’t seem to make sense with the s...
mrnoone
Hey
On an unrelated note, I wanted to ask why the grammar point is introduced as とみえる, but all of the sentences use 見; seems strange not to introduce it as と見える.
I have changed the title to “と見える”!
Edit: Aaaand one more question: on that final example sentence, how is 終わらせてなかった conjugated? It looks like 終わる is being put into causative form here, which doesn’t seem to make sense with the sentence…
It is kind of a trick, you can change intransitive verb with a causative form to transitive one.
So basically 終わらせる = 終える.
Plus, I think it has a stronger nuance of putting energy/effort when compared to 終える。Sorry for late answer!
eefara
Whoa, that is really cool. Does Bunpro cover this kind of behavior in any of the lessons?
mrnoone
Hey
To be honest, I thought about doing a lesson about this. But for the time being, I wrote an example like that, hoping that someone would ask about it from curiosity.
eefara
I’ll make a note about it for now, then, and see if I can look up more examples. Thanks for the mini lesson!
Kuromaku
Can someone explain to me how this sentence works?
今日の宿題は難しかった とみえて 、誰も終わらせてなかった。
Specifically とみえて I just don’t get it.
The rest is fine.
eefara
This looks like a pretty straightforward example of the grammar point. とみえる means “it seems that”, and とみえて is just the て form, allowing the two thoughts in the sentence to connect: “it seems today’s homework was difficult” and “no one finished it”.
bsmith99
Do the parentheses mean that “da” is optional when used with nouns?
MKSea
I’m a bit confused about the translation of the following example sentence for this grammar point.
彼が今プールから出て来たと見えて、全部が濡れている。
“He is completely soaked. It can be deduced that he just got out of a pool.”
I don’t really understand why the order of the clauses is flipped in the translation like this. Based on the other examples, I assumed this would be roughly translated as
“It seems like he just got out of the pool, so/and he is completely soaked” or maybe
“It seems like he just got out of the pool, which explains why he is completely soaked”Are these also accurate translations, or is there something about flipping the order of the clauses that is closer to the Japanese meaning? Just want to make sure I’m not missing any subtleties here.
nekoyama
I don’t think the order absolutely needs to be flipped because we can do both orders in English.
A key point is that the second phrase is something the speaker has actually observed, and based on that, the speaker deduces what the first phrase says. The bunpro translation makes this very explicit but it’s not necessarily the most natural English.
Your translations on the other hand kind of miss this point. In particular the one with “so” even turns it around. I think something like “It seems like he just got out of the pool, because he’s completely soaked” would work better.
Not sure if helpful, but another approach is treat the first phrase as modifying the predicate (like an adverbial phrase). I.e. the first phrase describes the way in which the second phrase happens. The て form can have many meanings, but in some expressions it’s always used like this. For example if you see a を使って it will usually not mean “use X and do Y”. It’l...
Isurandil492
家に行ったけど留守と見えた。
I went to their house, but it seemed that they weren’t home.What tells me that the person is talking about themselves here? My translation would have been “He/she went to (their) house, but it seems that noone was at home.” (implying that later when the speaker looked/visited the house, noone was home).
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