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Is there any difference between 课 and 班级? As far as I know, both mean class in school. Some of example sentences I read are below:

这个班级上数学课的时候用计算机
他正在准备历史课的作业
这是一个高中的班级
他们正在上法语课
我的班级是在学习念英文
我想要教画画课

It might look like that the 课 means a class that represents any specific subject, while the 班级 means a class in general. First, is this true? And second, is there any difference aside from that?

I also want to know that, if you want to express "Let's go to the class!" in Mandarin, which one should I use? And if I use the wrong one, does it still make a reader get the meaning or does it carry completely different meanings?

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5 Answers 5

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班级 is a group of students who started school in the same year and participate in classes together, it's the students themselves.

课 is a unit of the curriculum, that is held by a teacher, professor and is attended by the students.

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An interesting difference. Both have dictionary translations as "class." And http://www.baike.com/wiki describes 班级 as "the basic unit of the school." But this basic unit is not a class like history class or chemistry class, it is a class like the class of 2016.

Grade school and High school classes are organized into much tighter social units than is common in the US. Even at a large university the students in one year of one discipline can be a unit with a class leader 班长 and shared responsibilities for classroom care and social events. I do not know how widely this is done at Universities today, but I know it is done in some places. And in China, as in Europe, college and university students usually study much more exclusively within their department or research unit than in the US.

"Go to class" has the sense of go to history class, not go to the class of 2016. So it is 上课.

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  • The problem is due to the 1 English word "class", not the 2 Chinese words. When we have 2 meanings to say, we do need 2 words, right? Too many times the situation is the other way around, I accept it.
    – PdotWang
    Feb 4, 2015 at 16:35
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Perhaps the differences between Chinese and American (though I'm not sure where you live) educational system is responsible for your confusion. It seems that in the US,students go to different classrooms in different periods,and your classmates may vary too.But in east asia,every student belongs to a group called 班级.Unlike in the US,a 班级 has only one schedule.PE,math,science,art,a 班级 stays together as a basic unit.Therefore,every classmate is always in the same class. In conclusion,课 means class like math,Chinese,art,while 班级 stands for this gruop of people. Also,in east asia,every 班级 has its own classroom.Unlike American students who put their belongings in lockers,we put our stuffs in our classroom.Most of the time,we stay in our classroom,and some teachers like Math or English just come. Our classroom is like our home during schooltime. Sorry for my poor English,hope I've answered your question.

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In http://www.thefreedictionary.com/class

4a. A group of students who are taught together, usually at a regularly scheduled time and in the same subject.

4c. The subject material taught to or studied by such a group: found the math class challenging.

班级 is 4a.

课 is 4c.

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I like to explain thing simple:
课 : A lesson=A unit
科 : any specific subject
班级: Class. example: ClassA, ClassB (in english mostly call GroupA GroupB)
年级: Grade, level

  • "Let's go to the class!" should translate to "让我们去上课" but we mostly said "我们去上课"
    u can't use "我们去班级" it'll translate to "let go to class group"


    extra: if u want to said "Devid class is Group1" = "devid是在1班"
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