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Besides stating something obvious, "apparently" can be used to indicate surprise:

I just got my essay back. Apparently "diphthong" is spelt with "th".

Could it be translated with "anscheinend" in this case?

Anscheinend wird "diphthong" mit "th" geschrieben.

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1 Answer

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"Anscheinend" is correct.

"Offenbar" sounds slightly better here than "anscheinend". It emphasizes that the speaker thought differently before he got his essay back and is still a bit reluctant to accept that he was wrong.

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Was about to post something similar, including offenbar, so +1. I'd add that you also see "Es scheint [[wohl] so [zu sein]], dass [...]" in situations like this. – OregonGhost Aug 19 '11 at 16:18
"Anscheinend wird..." or "Überraschenderweise wird ..." are also common ways to express your opposing expectations. The latter would be the clearest adjective to state your surprise. – con-f-use Aug 19 '11 at 17:33
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@Hendrik Vogt: I'd attribute that to offensichtlich rather than offenbar. Offenbar is, at least in my experience, used similar to anscheinend and may also leave some doubt. The line may be blurry in colloquial use, of course... – OregonGhost Aug 19 '11 at 18:56
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@Hendrik: I disagree. "Offenbar", and more so "offensichtlich", can mean "obviously". But here it serves to slightly decline responsibility for correctness. The speaker expresses that his supposition is not based on his original thought, but that he has to take someone else's word for it. – Stefan Walter Aug 19 '11 at 18:58
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You might also note that there is a bit of confusion about the meaning of the words anscheinend and scheinbar. These two are often used as synonyms, when in fact anscheinendmeans "apparently" and scheinbar only seems to be true, but in fact is not. Source: spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/0,1518,315125,00.html – 0x6d64 Aug 19 '11 at 20:09
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