Я не уверен, началась ли уже посадка.

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Breakdown of Я не уверен, началась ли уже посадка.

• не: not
• уже: already
• ли: whether

Questions & Answers about Я не уверен, началась ли уже посадка.

Why do we use ли here, and what does it mean?

Ли is a particle used to introduce a yes/no indirect question (an embedded “whether/if” question).

• Я не уверен, началась ли уже посадка.
  = I’m not sure *whether boarding has already started.*

In English, we use whether / if to show that the question is yes/no. In Russian, inside another clause, ли does this job.

You cannot translate ли itself as a separate word like “whether” in most contexts; it’s more like a grammatical marker that tells you: “Inside this clause, there is a yes/no question.”

Where does ли go in the sentence? Why is it after the verb?

Ли always comes immediately after the word it belongs to, and that word is usually the one you’re questioning or focusing on.

In началась ли уже посадка:

• In a normal statement, you’d say: посадка уже началась (boarding has already started).
• For an embedded yes/no question, Russian typically puts the verb first, then ли, then the rest:
  • началась ли уже посадка = whether boarding has already started.

So the pattern here is:

• Statement: посадка уже началась
• Embedded question: началась ли уже посадка

You generally don’t say: ли началась уже посадка or уже ли началась посадка — that sounds wrong or at least very unnatural.