How to Form Questions

Questions Starting with a Question Word

When a question begins with an interrogative word (e.g. mikä), the typical word order is the same as that of an ordinary statement. It is not reversed like in English (although a lot of exceptions to this rule can be found).

Mikä tämä on? 'What is this?'

Mitä kieliä sinä puhut?

Missä sinä asut?

mikä = what, which
mitä = what
kuka = who
missä = where
mistä = where from
millainen = what...like, what kind of

Yes/No Questions

When there is no question word, the question begins with a verb and the word order is reversed. An interrogative suffix -ko or -kö is added to the verb. The choice between -ko and -kö depends on what vowels the verb stem contains. If the stem part contains a back vowel (a, o, u), the suffix will be -ko, otherwise the suffix will be -kö:

Onko John englantilainen?
Puhuuko John ranskaa?
Ymmärtääkö John suomea? (ymmärtää = understand)

Notice that personal endings will remain in questions before the interrogative suffix:

Minä olen... --> Olenko minä?
Sinä olet... --> Oletko sinä?
John on... --> Onko John...?
John puhuu... --> Puhuuko John...?

The most common way to answer yes/no questions is to repeat the verb of the question. Kyllä, or more colloquially, joo, ('yes') occurs less frequently alone; it often combines with the verb to add some emphasis to the answer.

The negation ei ('no') has different forms for different persons : en for minä, et for sinä, and ei for 3rd person pronouns, for example.

Oletko sinä saksalainen?
Olen (kyllä).
Kyllä (olen).
En (ole).

Onko tämä hyvä auto?
On (kyllä).
Kyllä (on).
Ei (ole).

To sitemap - Lesson 1 - Lesson 2

Last reviewed: January 2004.

Please send comments to: prentz@westminstercollege.edu