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Per an ELL post, the following sentence might not be grammatically correct

This work is easy to me.

at least, the expression is unusual to a native English speaker.

In the meanwhile, a similar one sounds natural to him.

This work seems easy to me.

I have been treating "seems" as "is + a bit uncertainty". Cambridge Dictionary verifies my feeling by giving this definition of "seem"

to give the effect of being; to be judged to be

Google Ngram also justifies that sense.

enter image description here

So, is it idiomatic to substitute "to be" for "seem" when getting rid of uncertainty?

WXJ96163
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  • It certainly does seem to be the case. "He seems to be drunk = he appears to be drunk." --> meaning that by the look of it he's drunk but we are not 100% certain. "He is drunk." --> we are sure that he, actually, IS drunk. Certainty. – Fermichem Mar 16 '20 at 22:38
  • @Fermichem Thanks for nice examples. Would I view of what you said as a YES to my question, the last sentence in my OP? – WXJ96163 Mar 16 '20 at 22:43
  • @based on the extensive research you've done, I'd have to say, yes. :) I'd wait for others to answer the question though, if I were certain about my "answer" I would posted as an answer after all. :) – Fermichem Mar 16 '20 at 22:47
  • Yes, I think that's right. Substituting "to be" for "seem" gets rid of uncertainty. – Old Brixtonian Mar 17 '20 at 01:58

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