Learn Hardcore Finnish: Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä, herra, lääkäri tulee pian. - Could you wait here, sir, the doctor will come soon.

voi-sit-te-ko
- voi- = verb stem from voida
- -s(i)- = conditional marker
- -tte = 2nd person plural ending (te)
- -ko = question particle

So it literally corresponds to “could you (plural or polite)”, not just “can you”.

Why not Voitteko?

Voitteko = “Can you (plural / polite)?”
Voisitteko = “Could you (plural / polite)?”

Using the conditional (voisitteko) makes the request more polite and softer, just like in English we often say “Could you wait here…” rather than “Can you wait here…”.

Why not Voisitko?

Voisitko is 2nd person singular (“could you” talking to one person informally, the sinä form).
Voisitteko uses te, which is used either for more than one person or as a formal / polite singular (“you, sir”).

So Voisitteko here is a polite way to address the man (like saying “Could you, sir…”).

Why is Te capitalized? I thought pronouns in Finnish are usually lowercase.

You’re right that pronouns are usually lowercase in modern Finnish: minä, sinä, te, hän, etc.

However, in formal or old-fashioned style, Te (the polite you) is sometimes capitalized:

Te (capital T) emphasizes respect or formality, similar in spirit to older English letters writing You or Your when being very polite.

So:

te = you (plural) / you (polite singular), normal spelling
Te = you (polite singular), capitalized as an extra sign of respect or formality (especially in older texts, forms, letters)

In contemporary everyday Finnish, capitalization of Te is less common and often not used; polite address is usually just te. But in very polite or scripted contexts (old textbooks, letters, service situations), Te with a capital T can still appear.

Why is Te used instead of sinä? What is the difference in politeness?

Finnish has a T-form and a te-form of address, a bit like “tu” vs “vous” in French or “du” vs “Sie” in German.

sinä = informal you (singular)
Used with friends, family, children, colleagues you know well, etc.
te =
- you (plural), talking to several people, and
- polite / formal you (singular) when you want to be respectful or maintain distance (customer, stranger, etc.)

In your sentence:

Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä, herra…
The speaker is addressing one man, politely:
“Could you wait here, sir…”

Using Te / te for a single person like this is called teitittely (polite form of address). Using sinä for a stranger or customer can sometimes feel too familiar or even a bit rude in very formal situations, though this is changing and younger people use sinä more widely.

What does the -ko at the end of Voisitteko do?

The -ko / -kö ending is the yes/no question particle in Finnish.

It attaches to the first word of the clause, most often the verb.
It turns a statement into a question.

Examples:

Te voisitte odottaa tässä. = “You could wait here.” (statement)
Voisitteko odottaa tässä? = “Could you wait here?” (yes/no question)

The choice -ko vs -kö depends on vowel harmony:

-ko after back vowels (a, o, u)
-kö after front vowels (ä, ö, y)

Since voisitte has o, i, e (no front vowels ä/ö/y), we use -ko: voisitteko.

Why is “here” translated as tässä and not täällä or tähän?

Finnish has several words that can all translate as “here”, but they’re not interchangeable. They express slightly different spatial meanings:

tässä = “here (at this exact spot)”
- very close, right where the speaker is or indicates
- static location (no movement implied)
täällä = “here (in this area / place)”
- broader area: in this room, in this building, etc.
tähän = “(to) here” as a direction (movement towards a spot)
- “Come here (to this spot)” = Tule tähän.

In the sentence:

Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä…
means “Could you wait right here, at this exact place (e.g. by this chair, at this desk, next to this door).”

If the speaker just meant “somewhere in this area / room”, they might say:

Voisitteko Te odottaa täällä? = “Could you wait here (in this area/in this room)?”

Why is herra used by itself? Is it like saying “sir” without a name?

Yes, herra here functions like “sir” in English.

herra literally means “lord / gentleman” in older uses, but in everyday modern language it’s the polite address “sir”.
Used alone, Herra! or herra is like calling someone “Sir!”.
With a surname, like herra Virtanen, it’s “Mr Virtanen”.

In the sentence:

Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä, herra, lääkäri tulee pian.
we have herra used as a form of direct address, equivalent to “sir”.

Note also:

There is no article (a / the) in Finnish, so herra can mean “sir”, “the gentleman”, “(the) man”, depending on context.
When used in this vocative way (directly addressing someone), it stays in the nominative form: herra, not herraa.

Why are there commas around herra: …odottaa tässä, herra, lääkäri…?

Those commas mark direct address and also separate clauses:

Commas around “herra”:
- In Finnish, a word used as a vocative (direct address) is separated by commas:
  - Voisitteko odottaa tässä, herra? = “Could you wait here, sir?”
  - Kuule, Pekka, tule tänne. = “Listen, Pekka, come here.”
- So herra is bracketed by commas because it’s the person being spoken to.
Comma before “lääkäri tulee pian”:
- Finnish often uses a comma to separate two independent clauses:
  - Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä, herra, lääkäri tulee pian. = roughly “Could you wait here, sir, the doctor will come soon.”
- In modern, strict writing, many would prefer a full stop or semicolon:
  - Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä, herra? Lääkäri tulee pian.

So the punctuation is understandable and not unusual in speech-like text, but in a school grammar context you might more often see it split into two sentences.

Why is it lääkäri tulee pian and not something like lääkäri tulee kohta or lääkäri on tulossa?

All of these are possible, but they have slightly different nuances:

lääkäri tulee pian
- literally: “the doctor comes soon”
- in practice: “the doctor will come soon / is coming soon”
- neutral promise that the doctor will arrive in the near future.
lääkäri tulee kohta
- kohta = “soon / in a moment / shortly”
- often feels a bit more immediate than pian, like “in a moment”.
lääkäri on tulossa
- literally: “the doctor is in the process of coming / on their way”
- emphasizes the ongoing process: the doctor is already coming, on the way.

Finnish frequently uses the present tense (tulee) to talk about near future, especially with time adverbs like pian, kohta, huomenna:

Hän tulee huomenna. = “He/She will come tomorrow.”

So lääkäri tulee pian is a normal and natural way to say “The doctor will come soon.”

Why is it tulee and not tulevat or some other form?

Tulee is the present tense, 3rd person singular of tulla (to come):

minä tulen
sinä tulet
hän tulee
me tulemme
te tulette
he tulevat

The subject in the sentence is lääkäri (singular: “(the) doctor”), so the verb must agree with it:

lääkäri tulee = “the doctor comes / will come”

We would only use tulevat (3rd person plural) with a plural subject, e.g.:

Lääkärit tulevat pian. = “The doctors will come soon.”
Potilaat tulevat pian. = “The patients will come soon.”

Why is there no word for “the” before lääkäri? How do we know it means “the doctor” and not “a doctor”?

Finnish has no articles like “a / an / the” at all.

lääkäri can correspond to “a doctor”, “the doctor”, or simply “doctor” depending on context.
The listener works it out from the situation and what is already known.

In lääkäri tulee pian:

In a clinic or hospital situation, it almost naturally means “the doctor (you’re waiting for) will come soon.”
If we had not mentioned any doctor before, it could also be understood as “a doctor will come soon.”

Finnish sometimes adds demonstratives to clarify:

se lääkäri = “that (particular) doctor”
tämä lääkäri = “this doctor”

But in many real-life conversations, just the bare noun is enough.

Why is there no hän (“he / she”) before tulee? Could we say Hän tulee pian instead?

Yes, you could say Hän tulee pian = “He/She will come soon.”

In Finnish:

You can use pronouns (hän, he, etc.), but often you don’t need to, as long as the subject is clear from context or is mentioned explicitly.

Two versions:

Lääkäri tulee pian. = “The doctor will come soon.” (subject is the noun lääkäri)
Hän tulee pian. = “He/She will come soon.” (subject is the pronoun hän, whose reference you must already know from context)

If you already know which doctor you mean, both could be used.
In your sentence, we explicitly name the subject: lääkäri, so there is no need for hän as well; using both would sound odd: Lääkäri hän tulee pian is not normal standard Finnish.

Is the word order Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä… fixed? Could you say Te voisitteko odottaa tässä or Voisitteko odottaa tässä Te?

The neutral and most natural order here is:

Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä…

This has:

Voisitteko (the verb + question particle) at the start (common in yes/no questions),
Te after the verb (the subject),
odottaa tässä (the infinitive + place).

Other orders are grammatically possible, but they change emphasis or sound unnatural in everyday speech:

Te voisitteko odottaa tässä…
- sounds odd, like you’re hesitating or breaking the sentence strangely.
- putting Te before the verb when -ko is already attached to the verb is unusual.
Voisitteko odottaa tässä te?
- also feels off; a pronoun at the end like this would strongly emphasize te (“Could you wait here, YOU?”), and even then, it’s not a typical pattern.

In practice, for yes/no questions with a verb + -ko/-kö, the verb with -ko/-kö usually comes first:

Tuleeko lääkäri pian? = “Is the doctor coming soon?”
Voisitko odottaa tässä? = “Could you wait here?”
Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä? = polite “Could you (sir) wait here?”

Is the whole sentence Voisitteko Te odottaa tässä, herra, lääkäri tulee pian. natural in modern Finnish, or a bit old-fashioned?

The words and grammar are correct and understandable, but the style has a slightly old-fashioned / very formal feel, mainly because of:

Te capitalized for polite address,
herra as “sir” (still used, but feels quite formal),
the comma splice between the two clauses instead of a full stop.

A more modern and typical written version might be:

Voisitteko odottaa tässä, herra? Lääkäri tulee pian.
or (less formal)
Voitteko odottaa tässä, herra? Lääkäri tulee pian.
or (informal to one person)
Voisitko odottaa tässä? Lääkäri tulee pian.

So your sentence is fine as an example of polite / slightly old-fashioned service language, like something you might hear in a very formal setting or see in older teaching materials.