Does そう imply vagueness in this JLPT question?

Question

I have this question in my JLPT practise book:

明日{あした}は雨{あめ}が降{ふ}りそうな_____がする。

A 予報{よほう} 　B 予知{よち} 　C 予感{よかん}　D 予測{よそく}

I chose A, mostly because of seeing 予報{よほう} used a lot when talking about weather. The dictionary backs me up on that by defining it as "forecast."

But the book says the answer is C. Is this because the use of そう means that the prediction of tomorrow's weather is a vague feeling? 予感{よかん} seems to me a sort of vague notion.

I'm not clear on this, because I thought そう could mean "appear" in a more neutral sense, in which case, 予報{よほう} should fit just as well, shouldn't it?

Answer 1

You need to translate the sentence in your head before you decide which answer you're going to pick (if you're not entirely sure).

First read it without the gap filled in and try to guess what it wants to say.

The example sentence here approximately wants to say "It looks as if it's going to rain tomorrow."

The information of "looks as if" is already contained in "雨が降りそう" but as it happens, in your example they want to turn this general (objective) sentence into a subjective sentence. This information is contained in the "~がする"　at the end of the sentence. There are many examples of expressions of personal feelings in combination with "~がする", for example:

悪い気がする

悪い気分がする

Xな感じがする

and many more, in particular ~予感がする.

Now let's see why 予報 doesn't work here. As you pointed out, 予報 means "(weather) forecast". Using this in the gap, the sentence would roughly translate as follows:

"The forecast makes as if it was going to rain tomorrow."

Note that I purposefully translated it as closely to the original as possible with the result of it being ungrammatical. This is because the "~がする"　at the end points you to a personal feeling which then used with "weather forecast" ends up not fitting together because "having" a forecast is not a personal feeling.

Edit

So to more precisely answer your question:

明日は雨が降りそうです。　　

Is the objective version and translates as "It looks as if it's going to rain tomorrow."

And

明日は雨が降りそうな予感がする。

Is the subjective version and translates as "I think it looks as if it's going to rain tomorrow."

~そう　can always be used to say "looks as if". For example

この建物は地震で傾きそうです。

Hope this helps.