Assessing situations with "kanlai"

看来 can be translated as "apparently" or "it seems" and is used by the speaker to introduce his understanding of a situation.

看来 as "it seems"

When speaking from your own point of view, you can just say 看来 and then state your perspective.

Structure

看来 + Perspective

Examples

• 看来他不来了，都这么晚了。It seems he's not coming. It's already so late.
• 看来你玩得不高兴，怎么这么早就回来了？I guess you didn't have a good time. Is that why you came back so early?
• 现在看来，事情没那么糟。Now it looks like things aren't that bad.

看来 as "from x's perspective"

看来 can also be used to highlight a specific person(s) or type of person(s) point of view. This is like saying "the way he/she sees it..." You can also say 在我看来, which is the longer version, though it is used more often that way in formal speaking and writing, as it has more of a feeling like "in my opinion..."

Structure

在+ Person + 看来 + Perspective

Examples

• 在我看来，不 会 花 钱 的 人 就 不 会 享受 生活。The way I see it, people who won't spend money aren't going to enjoy life.
• 在他看来，公司 大小 不重要，重要的是老板好不好。According to him, the size of the company isn't important. What's important is whether or not the boss is good.

See also

• "For…" with "eryan"
• Limiting scope with "jiu"
• Appearance with "kanqilai"
• "It seems" with "haoxiang"

Sources and further reading

Books

• Integrated Chinese: Level 2, Part 2 (p. 60) →buy

Dictionaries

• 现代汉语词典（第5版） (pp.763) →buy