Hi folks, my question is identical to this one from the Japanese stack exchange but the answer there it’s a bit too vague so I was hoping that someone here could give a more precise answer.
As someone who recently revisited this grammar point, I’d say that removing the という doesn’t make any of those sentences incorrect, but it does change them. という, as mentioned in the Tae Kim guide, adds a meaning of “so they say…” or “so it’s said that…”. It adds a sense of authority to the sentence. With the second sentence, for example, if I just said:
日本人はお酒に弱いのは本当？
I would kind of sound like some dude with an opinion on Japanese people. However, with the という added in, it becomes implied that I’ve heard somewhere before that Japanese people can’t handle alcohol well. This is especially relevant in the third example sentence, where someone’s relationship status is often a subject of rumours. Adding the という goes about more explicitly saying something like “people have been talking about your relationship status, and I have a question”.
I don’t feel like any of these sentences work with the intended meaning if you change them to の. And I don’t think something like だの is even an option.
The feeling would be different, though it’s hard to express it in a translation. A sentence with just の as a nominalization is more neutral and objective. A sentence with というの is more expressive and subjective.
For describing the best part of a story, to me というの just seems to fit better there, even if the sentence could be said with just の.
It’s not that it’s ungrammatical, just that it wouldn’t feel the same.
I really tried but it would not encompass different paragraphs and typing with one hand (recovering from surgery on the left hand) on an ipad is no fun. So I’m being a bit sloppy with formatting.
