An indirect (or embedded) question is a question tucked inside a larger sentence: "I don't know whether he's coming," "She asked where I live." English rebuilds the question heavily when it does this — it swaps in whether/if, undoes the inversion, and often shifts the tense back. Finnish barely touches the question at all. The remarkable thing is that the direct question and the indirect question use the same machinery; only the position changes. Learn to see the embedded question as the direct question dropped, unchanged, into a slot after a comma.
Yes/no questions keep -ko/-kö — and there is no word for "whether"
A direct yes/no question is built with the clitic -ko/-kö on the fronted verb: Tuleeko hän? ("Is he coming?"). To embed it, you keep that exact clause and put it after the main verb, with a comma in front. There is no separate word for whether or if — the -ko clitic already carries that meaning.
En tiedä, tuleeko hän.
I don't know whether he's coming.
Kysyin, onko se totta.
I asked whether it's true.
Hän ei kertonut, oliko hän kotona.
She didn't say whether she'd been home.
Compare the direct and indirect forms side by side and you can see how little happens:
| Direct question | Embedded question |
|---|---|
| Tuleeko hän? | En tiedä, tuleeko hän. |
| Onko se totta? | Kysyin, onko se totta. |
| Puhutko suomea? | Hän kysyi, puhunko suomea. |
The verb-plus-clitic still stands at the front of its own clause, exactly as in the direct question. The only differences are that the question mark is gone (the whole sentence is now a statement) and a comma marks the boundary. Note in the third row that the person may change with the reported speaker — puhutko ("do you speak") becomes puhunko ("whether I speak") because the report is from my point of view.
Word questions keep their question word
An open (wh-) question in Finnish is introduced by an interrogative pro-word — missä, milloin, kuka, miksi, mitä — and needs no clitic. When you embed it, you simply keep that word. Nothing is added, nothing removed.
En tiedä, missä hän asuu.
I don't know where he lives.
En muista, milloin juna lähtee.
I can't remember when the train leaves.
Kukaan ei tiedä, kuka soitti.
Nobody knows who called.
Kerro minulle, miksi olet vihainen.
Tell me why you're angry.
Again the embedded clause is just the direct question, comma-fronted, with the question mark dropped. Missä hän asuu? becomes …, missä hän asuu. There is no re-inversion to worry about, because Finnish never inverted anything in the first place — the wh-word already sits at the front in both.
No tense backshift
This is where Finnish quietly diverges from English. English pulls the embedded verb back a tense after a past reporting verb: "I asked whether he was coming," not "…whether he is coming." Finnish does no such thing. The embedded verb keeps whatever tense the original question had.
Kysyin, tuleeko hän.
I asked whether he was coming. (lit. …whether he is coming)
Hän kysyi, ymmärränkö minä.
He asked whether I understood. (lit. …whether I understand)
In Kysyin, tuleeko hän, the reporting verb kysyin is past ("I asked"), yet the embedded verb stays present tuleeko because, from the original speaker's standpoint, the coming was present or future. English mechanically shifts to was; Finnish keeps the tense that reflects the real time relation. For an English speaker the instinct to backshift is strong — suppress it.
että vs -ko: statement complement vs question complement
Both että and -ko introduce a subordinate clause after verbs like tietää ("know"), sanoa ("say"), kysyä ("ask"). The difference is exactly the English difference between that and whether:
- että = "that" — introduces a reported statement, something asserted as fact.
- -ko/-kö = "whether" — introduces a reported yes/no question, something open.
Hän sanoi, että hän tulee.
She said that she's coming.
Hän kysyi, tuleeko hän.
She asked whether he's coming.
The verb you choose almost decides it for you: sanoa ("say"), tietää ("know that…"), uskoa ("believe") take että; kysyä ("ask"), epäillä ("doubt"), and tietää in the sense "know whether" take a -ko clause. The full behaviour of että is on the että clause page.
The trap: don't use jos for indirect yes/no questions
This is the mistake English speakers make most, because English lets if double as both "if" (condition) and "whether" (embedded question): "I don't know if he's coming." Finnish keeps these strictly apart. jos means if in the conditional sense only — "if it rains, we'll stay in." It can never introduce an embedded question. The tool for that is the -ko clitic.
En tiedä, tuleeko hän tänään.
I don't know whether he's coming today.
Jos hän tulee, syömme yhdessä.
If he comes, we'll eat together. (a real condition — jos is correct here)
The second sentence shows jos used correctly: a genuine condition. Swapping the two — jos for the embedded question — is ungrammatical. The conditional jos is covered on the jos and vaikka page.
Common Mistakes
❌ En tiedä, jos hän tulee.
Incorrect — 'jos' is only conditional 'if'. An embedded yes/no question needs -ko: 'tuleeko'.
✅ En tiedä, tuleeko hän.
I don't know whether he's coming.
❌ Kysyin, että tuleeko hän.
Incorrect — don't stack 'että' onto a -ko question; a yes/no complement takes -ko alone.
✅ Kysyin, tuleeko hän.
I asked whether he was coming.
❌ Kysyin, tuliko hän. (backshifting the tense to match 'I asked')
Usually wrong — Finnish keeps the original tense; if the coming is present/future, use present 'tuleeko'.
✅ Kysyin, tuleeko hän.
I asked whether he's coming.
❌ En tiedä missä hän asuu.
Incorrect — Finnish requires a comma before the embedded clause: 'En tiedä, missä hän asuu.'
✅ En tiedä, missä hän asuu.
I don't know where he lives.
Key Takeaways
- An embedded question is just the direct question, comma-fronted, with the question mark removed.
- Yes/no complements keep -ko/-kö and take no word for whether — the clitic is that word.
- Wh-complements keep their question word unchanged; there is no re-inversion.
- Finnish does no tense backshift: Kysyin, tuleeko hän keeps the present.
- että = "that" (statement); -ko = "whether" (question). Never use jos for an embedded question — jos is conditional only.
- A comma before the subordinate clause is obligatory.
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- Yes/No Questions by Type: Tuletko? Onko sinulla?A1 — The four kinds of yes/no question in Finnish — verb, existential, possessive and identity — and the case each one needs on its parts.
- Condition and Concession: jos, vaikka, jottaB1 — How Finnish builds if-clauses (jos), even-though clauses (vaikka), and purpose clauses (jotta) — and why jos never means 'whether'.
- Embedded QuestionsB2 — Indirect questions after tietää, kysyä, kertoa, miettiä: yes/no takes the clitic -ko/-kö, wh-questions keep their word, and jos never means 'whether'.
- että: The 'that' ClauseA2 — että introduces complement clauses after verbs of thinking and saying (Luulen, että hän tulee), builds niin … että results, and always takes a preceding comma.