How do you say “shine” or “seem” in German?

The sun seems to shine - how not to confuse “to seem” and “to shine” in German.

Definition

Scheinen in German means both “to shine” (as in, the sun shines) and “to seem” (to give the impression of being something).

Similarly, “to appear”, in the sense of suddenly being somewhere, is erscheinen, and Schein means “appearance” as well as “glow”, “shine” or “gleam”. But, to make things more complicated, Schein can also mean “ticket”, “bill” or “certificate”.

“Seemingly” is scheinbar - strictly speaking, it means something only looks true but isn’t. “Apparently” (it looks true and probably is) is anscheinend, although many Germans use the two interchangeably in everyday speech.

Examples

Die Sonne scheint endlich wieder. Finally, the sun is shining again.