Meu cabelo não ficou bom, então eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos.

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Breakdown of Meu cabelo não ficou bom, então eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos.

• não: not
• comprar: to buy
• meu: my

Questions & Answers about Meu cabelo não ficou bom, então eu comprei xampu e condicionador novos.

Why is cabelo singular in meu cabelo? In English we usually say my hair, which doesn’t feel singular.

In Portuguese, cabelo can be used as a collective singular to mean the hair on your head in general.

So:

• meu cabelo = my hair
• os cabelos usually means the hairs or can sound more specific/stylistic

In everyday Brazilian Portuguese, meu cabelo is the normal way to talk about your hair as a whole.

What does ficou mean here?

Here, ficou comes from ficar, which has many meanings in Portuguese. In this sentence, it means something like:

• turned out
• ended up
• came out

So:

• Meu cabelo não ficou bom = My hair didn’t turn out well / didn’t come out good

This is a very common use of ficar when talking about the result of something:

• O bolo ficou ótimo. = The cake turned out great.
• A foto ficou ruim. = The photo came out bad.

Why is it ficou bom and not estava bom or era bom?