# ли + interrogative question?



## mabimabi

I'm doing my usual Russian exercise and I can't comprehend this matter. Are all these sentences equivalent (and common)? Thank you.
The context is: a man in a bank asking for his money to be changed.


Могу ли я обменять здесь евро на доллары?
Можна обменять здесь евро на доллары?
Я могу обменять здесь евро на доллары?


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## Словеса

Hello,


mabimabi said:


> Могу ли я обменять здесь евро на доллары?
> Можно обменять здесь евро на доллары?
> Я могу обменять здесь евро на доллары?


You're asking the same thing and equally politely. Yes, the basic rule of using Russian is that there is always more than one way to say it.


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## mabimabi

Yea, I'm asking because my book is presenting to me this new way to say it in the 10th unit. So, I thought it was a totally different thing. Thank you.


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## Словеса

Well, these ways in theory make some difference indeed, but it is hardly possible to discuss it outside any particular situation. As you can imagine, they are much more numerous than these three; what you have read are merely grammar hints and should be understood this way.


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## ahvalj

I would say, all the three phrases differ in the degree of their politeness. The first variant is absolutely polite and the only one possible in formal circumstances, the third one is neutral and acceptable in everyday situations, the second one is more colloquial and can sometimes sound too informal.


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## Словеса

What are "formal circumstances" is difficult to determine; casual currency exchange is, I think, not formal enough to diswarrant any of these phrases. Of course, no one of these phrases is, usually, used alone to form a complete request; they could be used alone in a dialogue (say, when you want to ask the serviceman for more information), but, in my view, not otherwise. I maintain that the three are equally polite in the sense that they all lack any identifier of formality, they are all straightforward. It is impossible to discuss usage in a book, so I assume this one relates only grammar.


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## mabimabi

I agree with Sloviesa; moreover, let's not forget the student's target. We wanna speak Russian and people we speak to know for sure we're strangers; that's way all these details fall. By the way, this is the first time I've encountered something Russian which looks like English (I'm talking about this way to set questions).


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## ahvalj

mabimabi said:


> We wanna speak Russian and people we speak to know for sure we're strangers


If this is enough for you then you can use any of these variants: nobody expects nuances from a person positioning himself this way. However, the degrees of politeness do exist, and I can assure you that from a person fluent in Russian these three variants will sound differently. In particular, the first phrase can be used alone, whereas the two others almost require something like _«простите»_ or _«скажите, пожалуйста»_.


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## Словеса

ahvalj said:


> In particular, the first phrase can be used alone, whereas the two others almost require something like _«простите»_ or _«скажите, пожалуйста»_.


For me, no one of them can be used alone. Even if one of them could not, I could not call it a "degree of politeness", because degrees never depend on the context. The variants of this phrase may sound differently, these constructions per themselves even more so (it always happens this way with variants, no two different expressions can carry the same meaning), but I think you cannot describe the differences in a cogent way.


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## Awwal12

mabimabi said:


> I'm doing my usual Russian exercise and I can't comprehend this matter. Are all these sentences equivalent (and common)? Thank you.


"Ли" particle usually marks the more formal, literary language. (In fact, many Russian speakers, especially in Ukraine and Belarus, just don't know how to use it, replacing it with "или" in the beginning of the clause - which sounds very strange to the rest speakers, - say, to the dwellers of Moscow.) The variant "можн*о* обменять здесь евро на доллары?", on the other hand, sounds the most natural for colloquial speech, in my opinion (absence of "ли", plus using impersonal sentence with the predicative instead of the "subject + verb" construction). However, for that case I would also add "а" conjunction to the beginning: "а можно обменять здесь евро на доллары?"


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## Словеса

Awwal12 said:


> "Ли" particle usually marks the more formal, literary language.


Ли does not mark a language, in my view. It marks a way of interrogation.
Moreover, the description "the more formal, literary language" does not mean anything. Really: it does not define anything.
Also, using the combination "literary language" in the meaning "formal language" is a mistake of usage.


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## Awwal12

Словеса said:


> Ли does not mark a language, in my view. It marks a way of interrogation.
> Moreover, the description "the more formal, literary language" does not mean anything. Really: it does not define anything.


It defines the fact that people normally don't talk that way. Except during official speeches, lectures, TV broadcasts, something like that. Do you know people who talk in the language of Dostoyevskiy with their spouse on the everyday basis? Because I don't know any.


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## Saluton

The question with могу ли я is correct but indeed very formal. No one speaks that way.Another option is: У вас можно обменять евро на доллары?(Модераторы, что такое с форумом? Я не могу разделить строчки в своих сообщениях, уже не первый день так)


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## ahvalj

Saluton said:


> The question with могу ли я is correct but indeed very formal. No one speaks that way


The bank or the exchange office is the place where people are expected to speak this way. If you are addressing a Caucasian suggesting to change currency near the metro station, probably not.


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## ahvalj

Actually, we're probably discussing the usage in various cities and social strata. I would use the variant with _ли_, some other people from this forum may not. To a foreigner, I would suggest to chose a more polite variant.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> The bank or the exchange office is the place where people are expected to speak this way.


I beg you. 95% of the population cannot put two words together in the proper literary language. So, it's always a pain to listen to improvised speeches of D.Medvedev, for instance; Putin does it much better, but he's a clear exception among the politicians in that part. (And just 24 years ago we had a President unable to pronounce the word "Azerbaijan".) On the other hand, the colloquial language isn't the same thing as slang, rural dialects or something like that. So, one can expect whatever he wants, but...
Well, you always can conduct an experiment: just count how many times per day people around you use "ли" particle.


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> I beg you. 95% of the population cannot put two words together in the proper literary language. So, it's always a pain to listen to improvised speeches of D.Medvedev, for instance; Putin does it much better, but he's a clear exception among the politicians in that part. (And just 24 years ago we had a President unable to pronounce the word "Azerbaijan".) On the other hand, the colloquial language isn't the same thing as slang, rural dialects or something like that. So, one can expect whatever he wants, but...
> Well, you always can conduct an experiment: just count how many times per day people around you use "ли" particle.


I should trust you since I have heard Putin for may be 5 or 10 minutes in total since 1999, and even less so Medvedev and others. In any case, I don't understand why the plebeian usage must be considered a norm to follow. The language possesses a spectrum of patterns of different degrees of politeness, and a speaker must be able to discern when to use which one. The bank, dare I repeat, is a pretty formal place, so the _ли_-construction seems appropriate there. As to the frequency of this particle itself, it is definitley alive in indirect questions: _Не знаю, видели ли вы этот фильм?_


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## Словеса

ahvalj said:


> Actually, we're probably discussing the usage […]


I think, if we were discussing fine distinctions of usage (how such phrases were used depending on the social context), we would need to point out that the question was posed incorrectly. This is not a choice among these three options. First of all, we can use or not use _ли_ in any of these phrases («можно ли …»). Then, we can change the word order in many ways. Then, we can formulate the question differently. Then, such phrases can appear in different places of a sentence. So the question was apparently about grammar: do the three forms make drastic differences of meaning and perception in fixed circumstances. In these circumstances, they are all asked with the same "official" voice, they are all fine after something like «подскажите, пожалуйста», but rude without any «пожалуйста». Since the question was apparently not about just these phrases (which were of no interest, just random phrases in a book), but about all occasions of using «ли», the most meaningful thing one could say is, in my opinion, that «ли» does not turn a Question into a Special Question, as one might have guessed, but simply is yet another way to form a question, with somewhat different meaning, but not as differing that the difference can be explained in a couple of paragraphs.


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## Словеса

Awwal12 said:


> It defines the fact that people normally don't talk that way.


Okay, I understand, thank you. So, it suggests a fact not about a language, but about people. I was referring not to facts, but to the words, yet anyway.
If by "normally" you mean "in daily speech" (where the discussed phrases hardly can be used, because they use the word здесь, but that's not important), then I disagree: I think the particle "ли" is used in such speech, and the change of the word order is also used in such speech; frequency is not important for this question, because it is of no help in any particular situation.
I have not understood the remark about the language of Dostoyevkiy.


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