笑いにも聞こえる

[zuotengdazuo]

小さな、笑いにも聞こえる声が響いた。

Hi. Is the underlined part the same as 笑いのようにも聞こえる (sound like laughter)?

Thank you.

 

[bentenmusume]

I can't find the post I'm thinking of at the moment, but I feel like you asked a similar question before.

You could express a similar sentiment with のように, but patterns like Xに見える, Yに聞こえる, etc. do not require "のように". Adding it would lend a more explicit nuance of comparison, i.e. that it sounds like a laugh, but isn't one.

 

[zuotengdazuo]

Thank you, benten-san.
So how can I understand or translate ～に聞こえる if it's not exactly the same as ～ように聞こえる?

 

[bentenmusume]

As I already said above, it's the same basic meaning. ～のように is just more verbose and explicitly spells out that it's a comparison.

Xに見える "looks like X"
Xのように見える "looks as if it were X"

I mean, you can't capture it completely in English translation. The point is that Xに見える by itself can be used to mean "looks like X". Xのように見える is just a more verbose way to describe the situation that makes it clear that you're making a comparison.

 

[zuotengdazuo]

Thank you again.