So the 「」around 私が日本語を教えている学生 are just here to help parsing? To make it clear it’s a 彼らが(…)学生だからだ kind of structure?
Because 「今の言葉、変！」is a quote of the kind of thing they don’t say to friends but 私が日本語を教えている学生 doesn’t seems to be something someone would say aloud, so it’s quite confusing.
Yes, as far as I can tell.
Yeah, I see what you mean, and that did cross my mind, but since the first 「…」definitely doesn’t seem like something one would say in this context, I figured I would interpret it as a means of facilitating parsing or of highlighting the reason.
I feel your pain. The amount of times I see 「」 around stuff that aren’t actually quotations in Japanese is mind blowing. So hard to comprehend at times…
Yeah, you got it. Explanation is bueno and your interpretation based on limited context is what I got from it as well. Thanks.
Question:
Is it correct to say:
さくらちゃんのでんわばんご、なんばんですか。
?
I could just say
でんわばんごは、なんばんですか。(written in the book genki)
But if I’m in a group of people and wasn’t directly talking to Sakura-chan, this wouldn’t be clear, right?
People often omit particles in regular speech, so it’s not strange, and you’ll hear it regularly. Whether it’s “correct” by some standard, like a textbook, would be a different issue.
(note that it’s でんわばんごう, though not でんわばんご)
EDIT: Though in reading your question again, maybe the lack of は was incidental and you’re only asking about using さくらちゃんの? There’s nothing wrong with that.
Correct. The omission only works if it’s clear from context you’re talking about Sakura’s phone number, and not the listener’s or someone else’s. So if you’re not talking about whoever would already be implied, you need to specify.
That doesn’t always mean you have to be taking directly to Sakura, you could also already be talking about Sakura with someone else, but the general idea is the same.
Thanks for correcting me, I keep forgetting kana here and there
Could you explain better what you mean here? Sorry but I’m not a native english speaker and sometimes I miss the meaning of some expressions.
Anyway, let’s say that the speech is happening in a classroom as a group exercise. Would it be ok? Or, is it just useless to specify and I can just look the interlocutor in the eyes and say
でんわばんごうは、なんばんですか。
?
Is it used to just say:
なんでんわばんごうですか。
? (Both in formal and casual context)
Ok, so, to be clear - my first version would be ok…?
Yes, that would be perfectly fine.
Hold on, I just realized that I accidentally forgot to type the は
The sentence I’m asking if it’s possible to use is
さくらちゃんのでんわばんごうは、なんばんですか。
“As for Sakura-chan’s phone number, what is the number?”
not sure exactly, what you’re trying to get at here, but to me this doesn’t sound correct at all
If you wanted to say what (whose) telephone number is it you’d have to go: なんのでんわばんごうですか。
Or to ask [what’s the/your/… telephone number]: でんわばんごうはなんですか。
But you can’t put なんでんわ・・・
When I read your question, I interpreted it as “can I leave the は out or do I need to say it”.
So that was what I responded to.
Then I noticed you might have been asking about the use or lack of さくらちゃんの. I was saying the first sentence had no problems.
Ok you answered my question, but why this?
Is it a grammar rule or it’s just not used?
I got what you meant, that’s exactly what I was asking. Sorry for the confusion 
It’s just not used like but if I had to dig into a reason, I’d say it’s because you already have でんわ modifying ばんごう and if you prefix those with なん it sounds like you want to modify でんわ rather than the whole.
It’s like, whatphone number, instead of, what phonenumber. The former just seems weird.
I would say on top of that でんわ is a proper noun and なん is a question word so one can なん＋ばん (question word + unit), but not なん＋でんわ (question word + proper noun).
でんわ isn’t a “proper noun”, which is usually a name of a specific thing (固有名詞 in Japanese). Things like WaniKani, Jupiter, Paris, and the Beatles are proper nouns. でんわ would be called a 普通名詞 in Japanese, a “common noun.”
Can you explain more what you meant?
Did you just mean, like… “an actual noun” or something to that effect?
Yeah I meant like an actual noun, not a proper/named noun. My bad!
Yeah it’s that kind of weird category that’s more specific than a generic noun but not specific enough for a proper noun. Like, I wouldn’t capitalize “hatchback”, but it doesn’t feel right using it as generically as “car”.