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I'm having a little trouble understanding the difference in these two contexts.

What would be the difference between these two sentences.

友達に晩ご飯を食べました

友達と晩ご飯をたべました

My understanding is that と can mean "with" or describe taking an action with a secondary object (as well as mean "and")

So maybe another example.

彼氏にキスした

彼氏とキスした

Would the difference for that be "I kissed my boyfriend" vs. "My boyfriend and I kissed"

Thank you!

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に has a lot of functions and I won't go into detail of every possible usage of it. Let me just comment on your examples.

友達に晩ご飯を食べました is ungrammatical and makes no sense. 友達と晩ご飯をたべました means "I ate dinner with my friend."

彼氏にキスした means "I kissed my boyfriend." This に is a target/destination marker. (キスする is an intransitive verb.) 彼氏とキスした is similar, but it indicates your boyfriend also kissed you because there is と ("with ～"). If you kissed him on the lips, 彼氏にキスした and 彼氏とキスした are interchangeable. But if you kissed his wrist, you can say 彼氏にキスした but not 彼氏とキスした.

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  • Wouldn't 彼氏にキスした strongly imply a kiss on the lips? If the kiss was directed anywhere other than the lips, I suspect that it would be explicitly indicated in the sentence, ie 彼氏の手首にキスした。 Correct me if I am wrong on that. – kandyman Nov 8 '18 at 18:53
  • @kandyman Yes, you're right, it usually becomes 彼氏の手首にキスをした if it's on the lip. – naruto Nov 10 '18 at 3:54

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