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- "Heute sieht er ziemlich klei…
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There are often not exact translations for words from one language to the other, or rather a particular word can be translated using a number of different words in the target language and still be correct. For instance, scheint (scheinen) could be translated as "seems", or "appears" or even "looks" (as in "looks as if") and that would be okay.
On the second one, it's actually not "sieht" (sehen) in this sentence. It's the related separable verb "aussehen" (the "aus" part is separated from the main part of the verb and moved to the end in usage). "aussehen" could be also be translated as "appears" in the sense of "looks" as in the way something looks.
Would I get away with avoiding separable verbs in conversation, by saying something like: "Heute scheint er ziemlich kurz sein" - separable verbs make me want to cry...
Honestly, no, not in general, since there are just so many of them.
Abfahren = to depart, ankommen = to arrive, aufwachen = to wake up, ausstehen = to get up, zurückfahren = to return, and the list goes on.
Just gotta keep an eye/ear out for prepositions at the end of sentences and get used to the language in that sense, I guess.
It's one of these separable verbs, here it's "aussehen" - when saying that verb, "aus" is separated and put at the end of the sentence but the meaning stays the same. "aus"(out)+"sehen"(see)=aussehen(to look (like)/appear/outward appearance)
Honestly I think separable verbs should require a series of lessons all on their own.
