Когда фен сломался, девушка попросила подругу подождать, пока она поправит чёлку руками.

Сломался is the past tense, masculine singular, perfective form of сломаться.

• фен is masculine, so the verb agrees with it: сломался
• сломаться means to break / to stop working
• the -ся here does not mean reflexive in the English sense of himself; it is just part of the verb

A very useful contrast is:

• сломать фен = to break the hair dryer (something breaks it)
• фен сломался = the hair dryer broke / stopped working

So here Russian uses the intransitive verb сломаться because the sentence is about the hair dryer failing, not about someone actively breaking it.

Because попросить usually takes the person asked in the accusative case.

Pattern:

• попросить кого? + infinitive
• попросить подругу подождать = to ask her friend to wait

So:

• подруга = nominative
• подругу = accusative

This is different from some other verbs where English speakers might expect dative. Russian simply uses a different construction here.

Examples:

• Я попросил брата помочь. = I asked my brother to help.
• Она попросила маму позвонить. = She asked her mother to call.

Подождать is the perfective infinitive of wait. It suggests waiting for a while, until something happens, as one complete action.

Here that fits well:

• she asked her friend to wait until she fixed her bangs

If you used ждать instead, it would sound more like the general process of waiting, without emphasizing the limit or completion.

So:

• ждать = to be waiting / to wait in general
• подождать = to wait a bit / to wait until a certain point

In this sentence, подождать is the natural choice because there is a clear endpoint: пока она поправит чёлку.

This is a very common point of confusion.

After пока meaning until, Russian often uses the future tense of a perfective verb, even when the main verb is in the past.

So:

• девушка попросила... подождать = past
• пока она поправит чёлку = literally until she will fix her bangs

But in natural English, we usually translate this as:

• until she fixed her bangs or
• until she could fix her bangs

The Russian future here is really a future relative to that past moment. From the point when she asked her friend to wait, the fixing of the bangs was still in the future.

Поправить here means to fix, adjust, neaten, straighten a little.

So поправить чёлку means:

• to fix/adjust her bangs
• to tidy up her fringe

It does not mean a major haircut or styling session. It suggests a small corrective action, like arranging hair back into place.

Also:

• чёлка = bangs (US English)
• чёлка = fringe (UK English)

Because чёлка is the direct object of поправить, so it goes into the accusative case.

• nominative: чёлка
• accusative: чёлку

Pattern:

• поправить что? = to fix what?
• поправить чёлку

This is a straightforward direct-object use of the accusative.

Руками is the instrumental plural of рука.

Russian uses the instrumental case to show the means or instrument by which something is done.

So:

• поправить чёлку руками = to fix her bangs with her hands

Why plural? Because people normally use both hands, so plural is natural.

Forms:

• рука = hand
• рукой = with one hand
• руками = with hands

This sentence specifically highlights that she used her hands because the hair dryer had broken.

Because in Russian, possessive words like her, his, my are often omitted when the owner is obvious from context, especially with:

• body parts
• clothing
• personal items closely connected to the subject

So поправит чёлку руками naturally implies:

• fix her bangs with her hands

Russian does not need to say:

• её чёлку
• её руками

unless the speaker wants extra emphasis or contrast.

You could say:

• пока она поправит свою чёлку руками

but it is less natural here unless you are stressing that it is her own bangs.

Most naturally, она refers to the girl.

Why? Because the sentence logic strongly suggests:

• the hair dryer broke
• the girl asked her friend to wait
• the girl then fixed her bangs with her hands

So the most natural reading is that она = девушка.

However, grammatically, Russian pronouns can sometimes be a little ambiguous if there are two feminine nouns nearby:

• девушка
• подруга

Russian often relies on context to resolve this. If absolute clarity were needed, the sentence could be rewritten, for example:

• ...пока девушка поправит чёлку руками.

They do different jobs here.

• Когда = when
• Пока = until in this sentence

So:

• Когда фен сломался = When the hair dryer broke
• ...попросила подругу подождать, пока она поправит чёлку руками = ...asked her friend to wait until she fixed her bangs with her hands

Important: пока can also mean while, depending on context. But here it clearly means until, because it follows a verb of waiting: подождать.

Because the sentence describes a chain of single, completed events:

• сломался — the hair dryer broke
• попросила — the girl asked
• подождать — to wait until a point
• поправит — she fixes/finishes fixing her bangs

Perfective verbs are very common in storytelling when the speaker wants to show events as whole actions with results.

If you changed them to imperfective, the meaning would shift:

• ломался = was breaking / kept breaking
• просила = was asking / asked repeatedly
• ждать = to wait in general
• поправляла = was fixing / kept adjusting

So the perfective aspect makes the sentence feel like a specific completed episode.

The word order is natural, but Russian word order is fairly flexible.

This version starts with the time clause:

• Когда фен сломался, ...

That is very natural because it sets the scene first.

The rest is also in a normal narrative order:

• девушка попросила подругу подождать
• пока она поправит чёлку руками

You could rearrange parts for emphasis, but the original sentence is smooth and standard.

For example, Russian could also say:

• Девушка попросила подругу подождать, когда фен сломался, пока она поправит чёлку руками.

But that version is much worse stylistically because it mixes the time relations awkwardly. So the original order is the best choice.

Because фен is a masculine noun in Russian.

Many Russian nouns ending in a consonant are masculine, and фен follows that common pattern.

So:

• фен — masculine singular
• past tense agreement: сломался

Compare:

• телефон сломался
• компьютер сломался
• фен сломался

All of these nouns are masculine, so the past tense verb ends in -лся or -ся in the masculine form.