Japanese Revelations { ______ + 'そう／そうです'}

This is something that I think I'll start doing every once in a while -- Just sharing things that I find out about the Japanese language and/or culture. Mostly the language part of it, though. Anyways! Today's 'lesson' is about...

-----(Verb) + 「そう」／「そうです」／「みたい」-----
So. As much as it would help for it to be here, its not. There is a short lesson here about the dictionary form + そうです, though. I guess Tim Werx's explanation is pretty much the same as what I see it as, but I'm going through with this anyway. ^.^;
Basically, he says that adding 「そうです」 to a dictionary-form verb makes it into something like a rumor. As in, "I heard that Susie likes broccoli." (No offense to anyone named Susie, or to people who like broccoli. XD;;; )
Therefore, we get a sentence like this:

日向くんはケーキを食べますそうです。

(For the people out there without Rikai-chan and/or knowledge of Hiragana/Katakana...)
Hinata-kun ha (wa) keeki wo (o) tabemasu-sou desu.

In English:
I heard Hinata eats/is eating cake.

(The syllables in parenthesis are the correct pronunciation, the syllables before them are the way they're written.)

Okay, while that seems good, the way that I've heard actual Japanese people use it is more like a 'seems like', or just 'seems'. As in...

日向くんはケーキを食べますそうです。

Hinata-kun ha (wa) keeki wo (o) tabemasu-sou desu.

It seems that Hinata eats/is eating cake.

Oh, and 「みたい」 works pretty much the same way, but it's used after the 'te-form' of a verb, and it's a little less polite, as far as I know. So now we get a sentence like this:

日向くんはケーキを食べてみたいです。

Hinata-kun ha (wa) keeki wo (o) tabete-mitai desu.

It appears that Hinata eats/is eating cake.

I hope this made sense! DX
I'm such a bad teacher...

Mmmm... Cake...