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masaegu (Offline)
永遠の愛
 
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Central Tokyo
12-16-2010, 01:32 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by KyleGoetz View Post
Does the second sound non-native, or is it that the difference is more like:
"I went cherry blossom viewing in a group with my class" versus
"The class went cherry blossom viewing"?

I can sort of see how a language could treat クラス as a container rather than a noun that can perform actions, and thus "クラスが行く" could sound weird. But before I make this assumption, I'd like some confirmation.

As a sort of parallel, in American English, teeechnically we are taught in school that inanimate objects cannot possess objects, so "the car's bumper" is wrong, while "the bumper of the car" is correct. But I said "technically" for a reason, since all native speakers will say the first anyway since it's shorter.
The only natural situation that I can think of where the second sentence might be used by a native speaker would be as the answer to the question: "What class went on a hanami?"

If I have to think about a situation where something can be said, that's how often we would actually say it.

This is just like how we would say カイルが窓を割った. We would say it only as the answer to the question: "Who broke the window?" In other situations, we would surely use は. 

If you are among the group that went on a hanami, you would say 日本語のクラス花見に行った, not the other one. Having gone to school for 16 years in Japan, I just KNOW it. I've been on several dozen field trips and not once has anyone used が in talking about them!
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