"like" vs "as if"

[dcseain]

He looked like he was happy.
He looked as if he were happy.


Are 'like' and 'as if', as used above, synonyms?

Discuss, and please provide your native, or first-learned, dialect of English.

Comments

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my ear hears that faint distinction too.

Origin: Mid-Atlantic "native" (grew up 10 mi south of Mason-Dixon line, 2 hours from Philly, 1 hour from Baltimore). I automatically use "like/was" and "as if/were".

[Side note: I'm currently learning some Portuguese from CDs in the car, and was interested to learn that they have two different forms of "to be" -- "ser" for permanent states, and "estar" for temporary ones. So it's less close to French than I had thought initially. And two years of Japanese yielded three verbs (well, technically one copula and two regular ones) handling conditions of existence: "desu", with that being a kind of equality symbol and all-around mama's helper verb, and then "arimasu"/"imasu" depending on whether the subject is inanimate or animate. Fascinating to see how different languages interpret something so simple as "be".]

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Spanish and Catalan also have ser/estar and esser/estar for 'be', respectively. In Spanish and Catalan, ser/esser is used for things that are permanent/fixed/characteristic and time, but not location. Estar/Estar is used for location/temporary state, exlcuding time. Estar/Estar is also used for forming progressive tenses in Spanish, Catalan, and Aragonese.

Examples, using Spanish square brackets are connotation:

¡Que bonita estás! - How beautiful you are [today/tonight/now]
¡Que bonita eres! - How beautiful you are [as a characteristic of her existence/daily/by merit of existing]

Estoy hablando ahorita. - I'm talking right now.
Está buscándolo. - S/he's looking for it. [right now - at the moment]