Evidential verbs
When discussing your impressions of people—such as during a job interview—it is important to distinguish between what you observe yourself, what you have heard from others, and what has been proven to be true. Dutch has three specific verbs for this: lijken, schijnen, and blijken.
These verbs can be followed directly by an adjective, or they can be used with the infinitive te zijn (to be).
Lijken: Subjective impressions
Lijken means "to appear" or "to seem." Use it when your statement is based on your own direct observation or a personal, subjective impression.
Blijken: Proven facts
While a single interview gives you an initial impression, you eventually need to evaluate the facts.
This is where blijken comes in. It means "to turn out to be." Use it when there is concrete evidence or when something has been proven to be true after the fact.
Schijnen: Hearsay and rumors
Schijnen means "to be said to" or "to be rumored to." You use it to report what you have heard from other people, rather than what you know for a fact or have seen yourself.
Blijken as "evident from"
You can also use blijken in the fixed structure uit [iets] blijkt dat... to express that "it is evident from [something] that..." or "according to [something]..."
Summary in practice
Choosing the right verb completely changes the source and certainty of your statement:
- Zij lijkt betrouwbaar. (She looks/seems reliable to me.)
- Zij schijnt betrouwbaar te zijn. (People tell me she is reliable.)
- Zij blijkt betrouwbaar te zijn. (She turned out to be reliable, based on evidence.)
