Mexican Spanish to Norwegian: me parece can evaluate or make an uncertain inference
A personal judgement is not always a prediction
Me parece bueno can express a personal assessment, while Me parece que va a llover can express an uncertain conclusion about the weather. The Mexican dictionary records parecer both for personal impressions and for conclusions drawn from appearances or available information. Translating both with one Norwegian verb can obscure what kind of judgement the speaker is making.
Norwegian University of Science and Technology teaching materials distinguish synes, used for an opinion often grounded in experience, from tro, used for uncertain belief. The lesson contrasts an evaluation after tasting chocolate with a belief before tasting it. This is a useful distinction for Spanish parecer, even though no single Spanish word labels the boundary in every context.
Look at what the speaker has actually evaluated
Compare Ya lo probé y me parece rico with No lo he probado, pero creo que está rico. The first explicitly gives experience of the food; the second explicitly lacks it. The Norwegian choice should reflect those clauses rather than treating parece as automatically doubtful and creo as automatically experienced. The evidence comes from the whole statement.
A Mexican food review can therefore combine a positive personal evaluation with disagreement about a measurable fact. Me parece rico, pero creo que lleva demasiada sal separates how the dish tastes to the speaker from a belief about its preparation or composition. A translation should not make the subjective pleasure into a laboratory finding.
Likewise, Me parece caro compares a price with the speaker’s expectations or budget. It does not necessarily express uncertainty about the numeral on the price tag. Choosing wording that merely suggests the price may have been misread can replace an evaluation with a different practical problem.
A person’s appearance is another construction
Parece cansado reports an impression of someone’s condition. Me parece que no durmió adds a hypothesis about its cause. Neither is automatically an expression of personal liking or dislike. In Norwegian, the difference between observing an appearance and believing an explanation should remain visible instead of being flattened into a general opinion formula.
The reflexive se parece has another meaning again: it expresses resemblance. Se parece a su hermano compares two people’s appearance or characteristics; it does not say that the speaker thinks a brother will arrive. The added pronoun and the following comparison belong to the lexical interpretation, not merely to the politeness of the sentence.
Finally, attribution can matter in a shared decision: A mí me parece bien, pero a ella no separates two people’s assessments of the same proposal. Keeping both evaluators avoids turning an individual preference into group agreement. The Norwegian lesson’s opinion-versus-belief distinction helps select the kind of judgement, while the Spanish pronouns identify whose judgement is being expressed and whose objection remains unresolved.
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