# Nainen, tupakoitko sinä?



## Russianer

A phrase: 
Lady, do you smoke?

Is it possible to say:
*Nainen, sinä tupakoi?
*or:*
Nainen, sinä tupakoitsee?
*(??)


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## DrWatson

Russianer said:


> A phrase:
> Lady, do you smoke?
> 
> Is it possible to say:
> *Nainen, sinä tupakoi? *
> or:*
> Nainen, sinä tupakoitsee? *
> (??)


Lady, do you smoke? = *(Nainen)/Neiti, tupakoitko sinä?* ('Ты куришь?') or *(Nainen)/Neiti, tupakoitteko te?* ('Вы курите?')
By the way, calling someone *nainen* is not very polite. *Neiti* is acceptable but even that is quite old-fashioned, maybe even out-of-date.


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## Nikolaos_Kandidatos

Russianer said:


> A phrase:
> Lady, do you smoke?
> 
> Is it possible to say:
> *Nainen, sinä tupakoi?
> *or:*
> Nainen, sinä tupakoitsee?
> *(??)



No, neither are correct - firstly, the verb we use is tupakoida, so that rules the second phrase out. Secondly, the polite form of address "lady, госпожа" is "rouva", not _nainen _(женщина).

Fourthly, in Finnish questions are marked in a way different from Russian. I imagine a Russian would say "Госпожа, вы курите?", which uses prosody (intonation patterns) to encode the function of questioning. In Finnish, you use morphology instead of prosody: the -ko/kö clitic (corresponding to Russian ли) is added to the word being questioned (in this case the verb). Also, the order of words is different: the word being questioned is moved to the beginning of the sentence.

So what I would ask is: "Rouva, tupakoitteko te?", which is pretty much the same structurally as "Госпожа, курите ли вы"?

edit: so yes the same morphology is available in Russian too, only in Finnish the first option (prosody only) is not available


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## Russianer

Kiitos!
Thank you!
Cпасибо! ))


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