33841
In the trailer for Fault Milestone One, one character asks another,
わたし達．．．帰れるよね．．．？

The translation provided of 'Will we... be able to go back...?' seems straight
forward enough, but the use of よ here confuses me. I'm familiar with よ to add
emphasis or certainty, or to soften insisting, commanding, or warning
statements, but none of these seem to apply here. In fact, the sentence seems
very timid and hesitant - hardly a situation where emphasis is needed.

Why would the writers have chosen to use よ here? What does the よ add to this
sentence? I know that よね can be used to ask for confirmation; would this
sentence be better translated as "We will be able to return... won't we?" to
encapsulate the nuance of the particles?

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nhG3y.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nhG3y.jpg)
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2016-04-28T07:20:08.863
33840
2016-04-28T09:44:50.510
10099
question
particles sentence-final-particles particle-よ
How can よ be used as part of a question?
The way I have come to understand よ and ね, is that they mark ownership over a
piece of information being used in conversation. よ marks a piece of
information as being the speaker's, while ね marks it as being someone else's.
This is known as epistemics within conversation analysis.

For instance, if we look at the phrase "お兄さんは歯医者だよね?", the speaker expresses
that he is rather sure this is the case, but since that piece of information
(i.e. that the recipient's brother is a dentist) is not 'his', he couldn't
just come out and say "お兄さんは歯医者だよ", as this would be considered rude
(depending on context, of course).

In my understanding of the phrase 帰れるよね, the speaker expresses a certainty
that has come into question. Up until that point, the speaker must have
believed that they were able to return, but is no longer sure, and thus seeks
another authority on the matter, marked with ね. Therefore, I agree with your
translation as "We will be able to return... won't we?", as it expresses the
same certainty in "We will be able to return", with a question tagged onto it.
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2016-04-28T09:44:50.510
33841
2016-04-28T09:44:50.510
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answer