#question particle

in Finnish, intonation doesn’t (necessarily) change when a sentence is a question from the way it is intonated when the sentence is a statement. Instead, Finnish has a small particle expressing uncertainty, a -ko/-kö suffix.

It is mainly used to mark a question as such,

(example: Voit auttaa minua - You can help me

                 Voitko auttaa minua - Can you help me?)

but can also be used to mark uncertainty in other sentences.

(example: Kysyin, voitko auttaa minua - I asked ifyou can help me; literally: I asked, can you help me?)

NOTE that if a question is asked with -ko/-kö you do notneed the personal pronoun in the 3rd person singular/plural in the reply, eg. Voivatko he auttaa minua? Voivat.

BUT if a question word (1,2,3,4) is used you doneed the 3rd person pronoun, eg. Miten se tarkoittaa? Setarkoittaa x