Det ser ud til, at hun kommer til tiden.

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Breakdown of Det ser ud til, at hun kommer til tiden.

• det ser ud til at: it looks as if
• komme til tiden: to arrive on time

Questions & Answers about Det ser ud til, at hun kommer til tiden.

Why does the sentence start with det when it is really about hun?

Here det is a formal subject or dummy subject. Danish often uses det in expressions like:

• Det ser ud til, at ...
• Det virker som om, at ...
• Det lader til, at ...

So even though the real content is about hun, Danish uses det to introduce the whole statement.

You can think of it a bit like English it in It looks like she is arriving on time. The it does not refer to a specific thing; it is just needed to make the sentence work naturally.

What does ser ud til do here?

Ser ud til is a very common expression meaning something like appears to, seems to, or looks like.

It is built from:

• ser = present tense of se (to see / look)
• ud = out
• til = to

But you should learn ser ud til as a fixed expression, not by translating each word separately. The literal parts are less important than the whole meaning.

Examples:

• Det ser ud til, at det regner senere.
• Det ser ud til, at han har ret.