In Sweden, a request can arrive dressed up as a question. It does not march in and say, "Do this!" It pads into the room in socks and says: Kan du öppna fönstret? (Can you open the window?) Grammatically, it is a question. But in many situations, it does not mean, "Are you physically capable of opening the window?" It means something closer to: Öppna fönstret, tack. (Open the window, please.) Only softer.