Expressing Similarity in Japanese (よう) & (みたい)

Although the grammar for よう and みたい is slightly different, their meaning is essentially the same. You can think of よう as the more formal version of みたい.

Let’s look at よう first. The kanji for よう is 様, one of the meanings of which is “appearance”. The structure for connecting nouns is:

【Noun】のような【Noun】

夢ゆめのような世界せかい。

A dream-like world.

Used in this way, よう is almost always written in hiragana.

家族かぞくのような関係かんけいを保たもつ。

Maintain a family-like relationship.

To connect the structure with a verb or adjective, we need to use the target particle.

【Noun】のように【Verb/Adjective】

ロボットのように振ふる舞まう。

Act like a robot.

彼女かのじょはいつものように遅おくれてくるだろう。

I reckon she’ll be late as always.

And よう can also be connected directly to the standard form of a verb.

勉強べんきょうに夢中むちゅうになっているようだね。

It seems like he’s absorbed in his studies, eh?

彼女かのじょは友達ともだちがたくさんいるようです。

It seems she has a lot of friends.

If we prefix よう with かの, it adds the strong nuance of “as if” (even though it isn’t actually true).

彼かれは初はじめて見みたかのように同おなじものを買かったりする。

He’ll buy the same thing again as if he’s just seen it for the first time.

みたい appends itself to the standard form of verbs and i-adjectives. For nouns and na-adjectives, it attaches directly to the word (without だ or な). Grammatically, its usage is the same as よう, except that to connect it to a noun we do not need the possessive particle の.

Grammar Rule: Once attached, both よう and みたい conjugate exactly like na-adjectives. This means they take な when modifying a noun, に when modifying a verb or adjective, and だ/です at the end of a sentence.

【Noun/Verb】みたいな【Noun】

女おんなの子こみたいな声こえで言いう。

Say in a girl’s voice.

【Noun/Verb】みたいに【Verb/Adjective】

子供こどもみたいに泣なかないで。

Don’t cry like a child.

【Noun/Verb】みたいだ (Sentence End)

あまり元気げんきがないみたいだけど、何なにかあったの？

You don’t look so good (it seems you aren’t energetic). Did something happen?

それは嘘うそみたいだよね。

That sounds like a lie, right?

子供こどもみたいだよ。

You’re like a child.