Person A: どんな ときに しゅくだいを する ことが できませんか?

Person B: きょうしつで とか かいしゃでは できません。

I understand what 「で」is doing (indicating the place) but what about 'wa' in
this case?

thanks in advance
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2017-12-03T11:33:42.980
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particle-は
What is the purpose of では in this context
Indicating the topic. 会社では as for at the company, I can't study.

Why do I need to input 30 characters?
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2017-12-04T00:56:31.433
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Like Fireheart said, は is indicating the topic, but I'd like to expand a
little bit to explain why it's there.

First, let's go back to the question that was asked:

> どんな ときに しゅくだいを する ことが できませんか？

Though there isn't a は in the sentence, the gist of the question can be
understood as " **When/In what situations** can you not do your homework?" As
Speaker B (and presumably you) understand, the answer to the question is going
to primarily consist of times/places - they will be the _topic_ of the answer.
As such, Speaker B replies:

> きょうしつで とか かいしゃでは できません。

とか here is acting like や to indicate an incomplete list of situations, so for
simplicity's sake let's think of きょうしつで とか かいしゃでは as one unit (I'll use
かいしゃでは), but remember that you generally need to add で to the end of each
entry.

> かいしゃでは できません。" **When you're at work** you can't do [your homework]."

Is what we end up with. It might seem like は isn't doing a ton here, but
consider the nuance of the alternative:

> かいしゃで できません。 "You can't do [your homework] at work."

Though this isn't _wrong_ per se, it's not responding directly to the question
that was asked ("When can't you do your homework?") by marking the answer's
salient information.
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