行ったみたいは何??

Can you help me understand the meaning of 行ったみたい in this sentence:
サーバルがどこかへ行ったみたいです - Which seems to translate to “Serval seems to have gone somewhere”
Is this correct? In what contexts is this used?
thanks in advance

Thats correct.

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That’s the translation I got as well. I can’t really elaborate any further on context or anything though.

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I think 行ったみたいです means wanted to go see?

I think that would be something along the lines of 行って見たいです
The みたい in this case means to appear like or to seem.

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I know that phrases like 「焼きそばを食べてみたい」 Mean “want to try (food)”
I still don’t really understand how みる works when appended to another verb

The みたい in that sentence to me kind of seems like it softens the preceding verb. Instead of just “I want to eat 焼きそば” it’s kind of like “I think I want to eat some 焼きそば”. At least that’s my interpretation of it anyway.

You can just put “行ったみたい Japanese grammar” into google and it will magically give you the answer instead of guessing. Here’s one:

yes I am aware google exists

Think of it as the “and” meaning of the ~て form - “do (something) and see (what it’s like)”, or in other words, try it. 食べてみる = eat and see (if you like it).

The example here is not a conjugated form of みる being appended. It’s just みたい. It’s its own thing and can’t be conjugated.

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oh I see, so it’s a different kind of thing then 食べてみる?

Yeah, completely. Verbs can’t come right after the た form of other verbs like that. This is just a word that means “seems like”.

It’s part of the nasty collection そう, よう, らしい, and みたい. Which are notoriously difficult to get a good grasp on. They all mean “seems like” (among other possible translations) but at different registers, or they express different ways by which you came to be aware of the information (hearsay, you saw it yourself, you’re looking now and it appears to be the case etc.)

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ありがとうございます

Just to be very clear, there’s two similar but very different concepts here. You’ve been discussing the Vた+みたい which basically means “looks like (he/she/they) V-ed”

The other is the V+てみる form

The V+てみる form is basically used when you want to say “try V-ing”. Can also be used to soften a verb and make it more wishy washy (very Japanese!).

Want to say you’ll try out a restaurant your friend recommended? (but maybe you won’t) "わかった!行ってみる”

Want to tell someone to try your new cocktail, but not sound too pushy? “飲んでみてください!”

Generally here’s how you could translate the normal form + a bunch of others:

食べてみる = try and eat / taste
食べてみた = tried to eat / tasted
食べてみたい = want to try and eat / taste
食べてみよう = let’s try and eat / let’s taste
食べてみれば = if (you) try and eat / if (you) taste

and on and on. Generally you can conjugate the みる like any other Group II verb (e.g. 食べる)

Hope that’s clear.

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Yes, that’s very helpful, thanks!

ぎみ is a part of that list too.
Albeit with its own nuances and use cases.

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