I’ve been struggling with these for a while, and my Japanese friends have likewise struggled with explaining them to me.
I’ll divide my question into 2 parts
って:
There’s a sentence in the course: おおさかってどんなところですか？ (or something very close thereto)
I can’t really figure how to use って, though. My Japanese friends tell me that は is just a good in this context. The only difference really being that perhaps は is a bit more formal.
Also the internet seems to say that って indicates some degree of emphasis. Somthing like…
大阪はどんなところですか？ = What’s Osaka like?
大阪ってどんなところですか？ = What is OSAKA like?
Is this a reasonable conclusion of am I still some ways off?
ね & よ
I’ve been struggling to get these right as well. My current understading is that both indicate some degree of surprise and emphasis while よ is more on the side of emphasis while ね is more an indication of suprise and perhaps compares as much to か as it does to よ (If indeed any of these relate at all).
An example would be in the case of “You are good at this”. (Unfortunately I wouldn’t assume to be able to write this sentence in Japanese, so to avoid as much confusion as possible, I’ll keep to English for now, hoping you will provide my with the Japanese translation).
Ending with よ: “You’re really quite good at this!”
Ending with ね: “You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?”
How am I doing here? If I’m wrong, how might I correct my understanding so that it becomes more accurate?
Thank you for your enthusiastic question as always!!
Let’s see how much my answers can help you
って
は、が、って are all ways of highlighting what you are talking about in different ways but they highlight them in different manners or nuanced ways. This is how I explain the differences… が is like shedding a spotlight to one person from a massive crowd. I feel like there should be a drumroll before the spotlight finally focuses on one person. This particle is a way of highlighting something as the “chosen one” from possible multiple options. When you say "犬（いぬ）がすきです”, it is implied that there are other things you could also “like” (maybe “ねこ”) but you are pointing out the “いぬ” option as your chosen choice.
は: this is a softer way of highlighting the topic with a simple gesture of indicating “this is what I’m talking about”. I imagine an elevator girl from the old Japanese customs raising her hand ever so softly and the “topic” of the sentence is shown above her hand. She is just saying “I’m talking about this on my hand” without really comparing it with anything else.
When you say "犬はすきです”, you are talking about your preference level of the “いぬ” specifically. It might be the case that you LOVE ねこ, and “ねこはだいすきです” is to follow, but from the first sentence ("犬はすきです”) only you can only tell what the speaker thinks about 犬 specifically.
Now, the one you are asking about; って. って is very very similar to は like your Japanese friend said, but it highlights the topic with a quotation mark. It is equivalent to “that thing you just mentioned, let’s talk about that” or “that thing I heard people talking about, let’s talk about that”. It’s referring to a topic that has been mentioned before, or a topic that both of you feel like it has been mentioned around you enough times. You might not know what it is, because you just heard the word/name, but you want to still talk about it…
おおさかってどんなところですか？
= (You just told me you’re from Osaka, but I don’t know that place…) What is “Osaka” like?
or = (People around me talk about this place “Osaka” a lot, I’m curious) What is “Osaka” like?
「ざぶとん」ってどういう意味（いみ）ですか？
=What does the word “zabuton” mean?
It could act exactly like the quotation marks as well
ヘレンが、「会いたい」って 言っていました
= Helen said she’d like to see you
ね & よ
I think your interpretation of ね & よ is pretty accurate.
Some other examples for よ
あの人（ひと）が ジョニー・デップですよ
=(Didn’t you know?!) That person is Jonny Depp!
もう8時ですよ、早く（はやく）おきてください
=(You might not have realised, but) it’s 8 o’clock, get up!
So, よ is marking whatever that comes before that as new information for the listener. When information is presented this way, the listener could maybe reply with
知ってますよ！
= (You may have thought I didn’t know, but) I know that already
Thank you for that great and in-depth explanation! It really did help clear it up.
Maybe you would consider adding って to the grammar course that is available on the app, which also deals with は and が?
Right now when you encounter it during the course, it hasn’t really been explained in any way, which causes a bit of confusion (Hence my original question).
