> 明日はどうやら雨らしいよ。  
>  It looks like it's going to rain tomorrow.

The English definition given (in Core 6k) is "seems, looks like", but in this
sentence and other example sentences I've seen, it's generally paired with
words that have similar English definitions such as らしい、よう、～そう. What does どうやら
add to the sentence that isn't already covered by these other words? If I
changed the example sentence above to `明日は雨らしいよ。`, how would the meaning
change?
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2014-08-17T13:19:07.273
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2014-08-19T02:41:44.993
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question
word-choice meaning
What does どうやら mean?
As a Japanese-speaker, my first reaction upon reading your question was like
"Since when is どうやら a verb!?"

「どうやら」 is an adverb （[副詞]{ふくし}） in Japanese even though your source appears to
give verbs (to seem, to look like) as its definitions. And because 「どうやら」 is
an adverb, it is perfectly natural that it is used together with the auxiliary
verb 「らしい」. There is no redundancy there.

> 「どうやら」 means "not certainly but probably", "in some way", etc.
>
> 「らしい」 means "to look like", "to seem like", etc.

These two words are often used together to express an inference based on
grounds.

If you said 「[明日]{あす}は[雨]{あめ}らしいよ。」, it would surely be understood but it
could sound kind of curt depending on the situation. It would sound like you
said it using the fewest words possible. I admit that adding 「どうやら」 will not
change the meaning of the sentence much, but it will sound "more normal" or
more like human conversation.
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2014-08-17T15:40:02.857
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2014-08-17T15:40:02.857
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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answer
「明日は雨らしいよ」- "I heard it's gonna rain" The speaker is unobjectively stating
that he has received information from a 3rd party source indicating that it is
going to rain.

「明日はどうやら雨らしいよ」- "It seems that it's going to rain" The speaker is objectively
stating that he has received information from a 3rd party source indicating
that it is going to rain and not implying whether he believes that it will
rain himself or not.

「どうやら」is a way for the speaker to emphasize his objectivity or possibly doubt.

See the second definition from the 大辞林 dictionary here:
<http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%A9%E3%81%86%E3%82%84%E3%82%89>
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2014-08-19T02:41:44.993
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answer