The Finnish question particle is ko/kö. The variant kö is used with front rounded and low front vowels. It is an enclitic and is used to form yes-no questions. The question particle is also used to form indirect questions.
The sentence He/she is here is Hän on täällä. To ask Is he/she here? the question particle is added. In Finnish Is he/she here is Onko hän täällä?. The particle is attached to the verb. Unlike in many other languages, the sentence and the question have the same intonation. The difference between the sentence and question is the inversion of the subject and verb and also the suffixation of the question particle to the verb.
In addition to yes-no questions, the question particle is also used in the formation of indirect questions. The indirect question I don't know if he's/she's coming is En tiedä, tuleeko hän. Here the Finnish question particle corresponds to the English conjunction if. The pronoun hän (he/she) is placed after the verb. This order is the opposite of that of English.
The variant -kö is used in the question Ymmärsitkö, mitä minä kysyin?. This means Did you understand what I asked? The pronoun sinä (you) can be omitted.
Unlike in English, Finnish uses a question particle to form yes-no questions and indirect questions. Finnish does not use intonation to indicate a question. The intonation of the Finnish statement and question are the same.
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