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I found some sources that said that I could use both constructions to mean "It
seems like verb..."

Therefore, are the following sentences equal in meaning?

> 泳いでいるように見えました。  
>  泳いでいて見えました。
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2022-01-22T14:09:39.213
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question
grammar meaning
Does て見える work like ように見える?
泳いでいるように見えた is the only correct choice in your context. 泳いでいて見えた is
grammatical but it would mean something like "I could see it (e.g., a shark)
while I was swimming".

-て見える takes an ~~instant-state change~~ verb whose ~~teiru-form~~ ta-form has an adjective-like meaning. 違う is a typical example of this. However, it **does not need -ている** to express the continuation of state. You can directly use the te-form:

  * 違った = 違っている "different"  
違って見える "appears to be different"

  * 老けた = 老けている "aged"  
老けて見える "appears to be aged"

  * ぼやけた = ぼやけている "blurry"  
ぼやけて見える "appears to be blurry"

  * 混乱した = 混乱している "confused"  
混乱して見える "appears to be confused"

  * 曲がった = 曲がっている "bent"  
曲がって見える "appears to be bent"

You cannot use this construction for ordinary action verbs whose teiru-form
expresses the progressive action ("is ～-ing"). 泳いで見える, 歩いて見える and so on are
ungrammatical.

And not all instant-state-change verbs can be used with -て見える:

  * 死んでいる "is dead"  
死んで見える "appears to be dead" (uncommon, 死んでいるように見える is much more common)

  * 知っている "knows"  
知って見える (wrong)

  * 覚えている "remembers"  
覚えて見える (wrong)

  * 結婚している "is married"  
結婚して見える (wrong)

I don't know the exact criteria, but I think it's probably best to use -て見える
only for clearly apparent qualities of something.

As far as I can see, -ているように見える has no such restriction. You can safely say
泳いでいるように見える ("appears to be swimming"), 知っているように見える ("it appears that they
know it") and so on.
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answer
> Therefore, are the following sentences equal in meaning?

Yes, it works equally **under certain context** , in practice.

One of the many use cases would be, when looking at an optical illusion.
Suppose there's a picture, and if you look at it from one angle, you see a man
swimming, but when you look closely, it's not. Don't ask me what it looks like
up close. Looking at this picture, a boy might say "it looked like it was
swimming!" in the following way:

  1. 泳いでいるように見えました

  2. 泳いでるように見えました

  3. 泳いでいて見えました (this is your example)

  4. 泳いでて見えました

  5. 泳いで見えました

_We can shorten "見えました" to "見えた" too._

It may be worth noting your example "3. 泳いでいて見えました" may cause a debate by
those who haven't been exposed to this version. The more I look at the
sentence, the "wrong"er it seems, but when I mutter them it makes sense. It
may be wrong after all, but somehow it makes sense to me, and I'm guilty of
using it.

I hope another answer or comment would explain the logic behind this.
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2022-01-23T01:32:42.617
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answer