Help with this sentence

Please can someone help me with this;

こっちの方が合うような気がする。

1 . Im really hating studying this verb 合う as it seems to pop up everywhere and mean pretty much everything. In this sentence, the ような I gather is being used in the sense of (like), as in 猫のような人 so how can it be used with the dictionary form of a verb? 合うような? So it means 'like it fits'? If the speaker is saying it seems to fit then why not use just かな。。。　or と思います。

2. 気がする is confusing to me. Is this to think? Again?

Is maybe VERBような気がする all one structure together?

As you can see, I am lost. Would very much appreciate the help.

Thank you

David

Have you learned the sentence structure for comparison, for saying things like "A is better than B" and things like that?

If you compare two things and want to say A is better (than B), you can say:
Aの方が(Bより)いい
If it is clear what you are comparing A against, you can skip the "than B" part in parenthesis.

So
こっちの方が合う
Says "this one ( rather than the other one) suits/fits better."


…ような気がする
Is a roundabout way to say "I think" or "it seems to me." "I have a sense that ..." the person is just giving his/her impression, and not sure, or let's say you are with a friend who is shopping for clothing, and you are asked what you think. You don't want to decide for your friend so you say your opinion in a roundabout way.

In case you have not noticed, Japanese prefer not to state things either black or white - they like being in the gray zone.

合う means to match or to fit. So, instead of saying something matches you, they would try various ways to be not so direct.

Examples and rough translations:
合います: it matches
合うと思います: I think it matches
合うかな: it may match
合う気がする: I feel it matches
合うような気がする: I feel it likely matches
Etc.

Hello, David

I'm Japanese and I might not tell you about it very well in English, but let me explain.

As you said, the verb"合う” is used in almost every situation. I'm not an expert for Japanese, so I can't explain exactly, but the original verb is "のような気がする" (one phrase) which means "I feel like (or I feel).

We, Japanese people don't tell our feelings directly. For example, if I want to say, "It doesn't suit you.", I will say, "I feel like it doesn't suit you, so how about this?" instead.

猫のような人 means a person who is like a cat. If we want to talk about a person or a thing (noun),
we say "(noun) のような人、(noun) のような物.

If we want to say our feelings or something like that, we use "〜ような気がする”. We use verb or adjective in 〜.

so how can it be used with the dictionary form of a verb? 合うような? So it means 'like it fits'?
→Yes, you're right.

You also can use かな。or と思う。
All these expressions are almost same. We often use かな。and と思う。.

2. 気がする is confusing to me. Is this to think? Again?
It means "I feel like〜."

Is maybe VERBような気がする all one structure together?
Yes, it is. It's a chunk.

I hope you can understand my English.

It is the Japanese thing. Japanese can almost never express one's opinion definitely or with a conviction like in English "Yes/No" because they are taught from an early age doing so is impolite or may offend others or may turn out to be wrong and embarrassed later or avoid confrontation frustrating westerners never being able to nail down by going around and around. So they say anything vaguely "maybe" to create the way out by adding, "youna ki gasuru", etc. Or sometimes, they try to "read the air" in a situation and change affirmative to negative or vs. at the last second as the Japanese language structure enables this. It is well known in the ESL circle and some text books reveal this Japanese mind structure and it is one of the reasons Japanese have hard time communicating effectively in the international scenes.
Learning language is not just about a word to a word translation but learning the mind structure/culture, too. And anybody who thinks teaching English is easy because one speaks natively gets it all wrong and fails w/o proper trainings/education.

...and then there is the double-negative, which Japanese use often.

E.g.,
合わなくはない - It is not un-matching.

Some languages don't allow double negatives, so it can be confusing to some. One common mistake is to treat a double-negative as a positive, which is not 100% true. It is like saying "it is not ugly", but does not mean it is pretty.