meaning of "tend"?

Question

does "tend" has the same meaning with "seem" in: "he tends to be nervous before his lecture"?

Answer 1

No. "Seem" would refer to how the person appears to others - someone who appears to be nervous may be sweating, speaking too quickly, etc.

"Tend" would refer to the probability or likelihood that the person would be nervous - a person who tends to be nervous is nervous most of the time.

Answer 2

'he tends' means 'he has a tendency to'
Therefore, the sentence means: He has a tendency to be nervous before lectures.
A tendency to do something describes a character trait or habit (for example, I tend to get up around 7 o'clock in the morning, or I tend to get irritated with people easily).

Answer 3

According to my sources "no",
as I list them after this short sentnces you yourself can conclude that, although their meanings somehow overlap each other, but they are to some degree different in meaning.
seem :
verb [linking verb, not in progressive] Spoken: 1000 • Written: 1000
1 to appear to be a particular thing or to have a particular quality, feeling, or attitude:
• You seem kind of nervous. [seem sth to sb]:
• Doesn't that seem a little bit weird to you?:
• Teri seemed like a nice girl.
• She waited for what seemed a long time.
2 to appear to exist or be true [seem to do sth]:
• Mr. Naylor seems to take very good care of his car.:
• It seems like you're catching a cold, Taylor.
• It seems to me that what he's doing is a mistake.
• it seems as if/though: It almost seemed as if we could hear the corn growing in the night.
• it seems (that)/it would seem (that): It seems that one of your students cheated on the test.
• "So Bill is leaving her?" " So it seems (= it appears to be true)."
tend WORD ORIGIN
verb Spoken: 2000 • Written: 1000
1 tend to do sth to often do a particular thing, especially something that is bad or annoying, and to be likely to do it again:
• Bill tends to talk too much when he's nervous.
• It tends to rain a lot during the winter.


But if you want to translate it from English to another language, as I do in my own mother tongue, you should translate them in the same way.
(If you want I can provide you with other sources, too.)
Good Luck!

Answer 4

usually