meaning of “tend”?

“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.

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).

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!