Yeah, when it was introduced to me by Nakama, it felt extremely redundant. Like the atho said, it gives a feel, specifically an explanatory feel. Sometimes it also gives a feel of “I know this, and I know you know this, so let’s bask in our shared knowledgableness”.
日本語のことなら、先生に教えてもらった方がいい。
What is the function of のこと there? I thought it was used to turn things into a noun but 日本語 already is a noun so I don’t understand why it’s there (-.-; )
Basically, it’s “things” here. “For Japanese things”.
Or, for a more natural flow, “If it’s about Japanese, you should ask sensei to teach you.”
You can use のこと to talk abstractly about stuff.
I’m a bit confused about using の (in regards to explanations and expectations) in non question sentences. When would you use it?
晩ご飯を食べなかった人は、映画で見た銀行に行った
I understand that the first part of the sentence is “person who did not eat dinner” but the second part is really confusing me, I can’t understand what it is trying to say 
i know the words are movie, saw/watched, bank, went (chronologically). Is it “Went to the bank and saw a movie in there?”
The particle に used in there is confusing.
映画で見た銀行に行った
First you need to break this into 2 parts
「映画で見た銀行」 に行った
映画で見た is modifying 銀行 here. So 映画で見た銀行 is “bank (I) saw in movie”.
So 映画で見た銀行に行った then becomes “went to bank (I) saw in movie”.
And then reintroducing the first part of the sentence, “person who did not eat dinner”, we get:
晩ご飯を食べなかった人は、映画で見た銀行に行った
Person who did not eat dinner went to bank (they) saw in movie.
The translation is good, but for smoother English, we need to scatter a couple of articles in there. 
The person who did not eat dinner went to the bank they saw in a movie.
You can also just mentally translate it as “about” when it’s used abstractly, and it’ll be more helpful nine times out of ten.
(As @Belthazar also noted, but I’d just go straight to it.)
Thank you so much! I’ve been thinking what the heck it was trying to say 
Where did this sentence come from?
I’ve seen it before in Tae Kim’s guide
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/clause
Example 4 of “Using relative verb clauses as adjectives”
That’s right. I’m reading about verb clauses and someone recommended that…
What a stupid sentence.
It feels like trying to teach people English with an example sentence like “The penguin who didn’t win the lottery stole some bagels from the parked van.” Like… sure, it has relative clauses, but it’s not something anyone would ever say, so why use it to teach relative clauses.
Speak for yourself. Feathers McGraw is a force to be reckoned with.
Can you clarify a bit with an example sentence? Is it something like:
Q: マリアさん、明日仕事に行くの？
A: そうなの。行かなきゃいけない。
this? Or did you have another use in mind? Because if it’s this, it’s the casual version of のです/んです where you omit です.
This is more of a pronunciation question but I hope that’s ok… Is ふ pronounced fu or hu or both?
Somewhere in between. “Hu” with the lower lip fairly near the upper teeth, so it pretty much sounds like “fu”.
That said, it’s not just one sound. You make the ふ sounds by trying to pronounce a “fu” without touching your lower teeth to your lips, basically just making an opening with your lips, so based on the shape of your lips the sound that comes out can sound more like a “hu” or more like a “fu”, and in speech, you’ll sometimes hear a difference between one or the other. For the Japanese, it’s the same sound though. So keep your ears open 
Hey, quick grammar translation question (I hope I’m in the right spot for this). For studying the strong imperative forms (in this case, specifically 〜な to convey a strong “Don’t!”), I was given this as one of the sentences:
父は医者にお酒を飲むなと言われている。
Is the meaning of this “My father is telling the doctor that he definitely doesn’t drink alcohol” or is it “The doctor is telling my father to definitely not drink alcohol”? I thought it was the second one but after looking at it for too long, I’ve confused myself