Learn Hardcore Swedish: Han har på sig en grön skjorta och svarta byxor. - He is wearing a green shirt and black trousers.

Literally: ha = "have", på = "on", sig = "oneself". So it’s like "to have on oneself".
Natural English translation in this sentence: "He is wearing a green shirt and black trousers."

In practice, whenever you talk about wearing clothes, ha på sig is the most common neutral way to say it.

Why do you need på sig? Why not just Han har en grön skjorta?

Han har en grön skjorta normally means "He has a green shirt" (i.e. he owns one).

To say that he is wearing it right now, you usually add på sig:

Han har på sig en grön skjorta = He is wearing a green shirt.

So:

ha alone → "to have, to possess"
ha på sig → "to wear (have on your body)"

Is har på sig like the English "is wearing"? Does Swedish have a separate -ing tense?

Yes, har på sig here corresponds to English "is wearing".

Swedish does not have a separate grammatical -ing form like English. The present tense covers both "wears" and "is wearing", and you choose the right English translation from context:

Han har på sig en grön skjorta
→ "He is wearing a green shirt" (right now)
→ could also be understood as "He wears a green shirt" (habitually), depending on context.

There’s no special continuous tense; present simple does the job.

What is sig, and why isn’t it honom here?

Sig is the reflexive pronoun for third person (he/she/they) in Swedish. It refers back to the subject of the clause:

Han har på sig … → literally "He has on himself …"

Forms of the reflexive pronoun:

mig – myself
dig – yourself (singular)
sig – himself / herself / themselves
oss – ourselves
er – yourselves

You use sig instead of honom because he is both the subject and the person wearing the clothes.
Honom would mean "him" as a different person, not the subject.

Can the word order change, for example Han har en grön skjorta på sig?

Yes, both of these are correct and common:

Han har på sig en grön skjorta och svarta byxor.
Han har en grön skjorta och svarta byxor på sig.

The meaning is the same: he is wearing those clothes.
The difference is mainly about rhythm and emphasis; there is no important grammatical difference here.

What you cannot do is separate på from sig in a strange way or drop sig in careful, standard Swedish when you mean "wear":

✅ Han har på sig en grön skjorta.
✅ Han har en grön skjorta på sig.
❌ Han har en grön skjorta på. (sounds incomplete in standard Swedish)

Why is it en grön skjorta but svarta byxor?

Two things are happening at once:

Article and number
- en is the indefinite singular article for common-gender nouns (like skjorta).
- byxor is plural, and Swedish often uses no article for plural indefinite nouns in this type of sentence.
Adjective endings (agreement)
- grön is singular, common gender, indefinite (matches en skjorta).
- svarta is plural (matches byxor).

So:

en grön skjorta = "a green shirt" (singular, indefinite)
svarta byxor = "black trousers" (plural, indefinite)

When do you use grön and when gröna?

The adjective grön ("green") changes form to agree with the noun. Basic pattern:

En-word, singular, indefinite
- en grön skjorta – a green shirt
- en grön bil – a green car
Ett-word, singular, indefinite
- ett grönt hus – a green house
All plural forms (indefinite and definite)
- gröna skjortor – green shirts
- gröna byxor – green trousers
- de gröna skjortorna – the green shirts

In the sentence:

en grön skjorta → singular, en-word → grön
svarta byxor → plural → the plural ending is -a (in this case: svart → svarta)

So if byxor were green, you’d get gröna byxor, not grön byxor.

Why is it svarta byxor and not svart byxor?

Because byxor is plural, and Swedish adjectives in front of plural nouns take the plural form, typically ending in -a.

Singular: en svart byxa – a black trouser (one leg / one pair, depending on context)
Plural: svarta byxor – black trousers

So the adjective must agree in number:

svart → singular common-gender indefinite
svart → singular neuter indefinite becomes svart or (in many adjectives) svart too
svarta → all plural

In your sentence, byxor is plural, so svarta is required.

Why is there no article before svarta byxor? Why not några svarta byxor or de svarta byxorna?

Swedish often uses no article with plural indefinite nouns in general descriptions, especially with clothes:

Han har på sig svarta byxor. – He is wearing black trousers.
Hon köper nya skor. – She is buying new shoes.

Adding an article or determiner changes the nuance:

Han har på sig några svarta byxor.
– He is wearing some black trousers (sounds a bit odd unless you’re emphasizing "some among several options").
Han har på sig de svarta byxorna.
– He is wearing the black trousers (specific ones that both speaker and listener know about).

The simple, neutral way to say it is just svarta byxor with no article.

Why is byxor plural? Can you say a singular form like "a trouser"?

In Swedish, as in English with "trousers/pants", byxor is normally used in the plural when you mean the garment.

Common expressions:

byxa (singular) exists, but it’s less common and can feel like "one leg" or one part of a pair.
ett par byxor – a pair of trousers (very common).

So you would most naturally say:

Han har på sig ett par svarta byxor. – He is wearing a pair of black trousers.
Han har på sig svarta byxor. – He is wearing black trousers.

The plural byxor is the default when referring to the clothing item.

Could you also say Han bär en grön skjorta och svarta byxor instead of har på sig?

You can, but the nuance is different.

ha på sig – the normal, everyday way to say "to be wearing":
- Han har på sig en grön skjorta … – neutral, common.
bära – more formal or literary, or used in specific contexts like uniforms, jewelry, symbols:
- Han bär uniform. – He wears a uniform.
- Hon bär en ring. – She wears a ring.

Han bär en grön skjorta och svarta byxor is grammatically correct, but in everyday conversation har på sig sounds more natural.

How do you pronounce skjorta, byxor, and svarta?

Approximate pronunciations (Swedish standard accent):

skjorta – [ˈɧʊʈa]
- skj- is one sound, the Swedish sj-sound (a kind of "sh" but further back in the mouth).
- Stress on the first syllable: SKJOR-ta (but with the Swedish sj-sound).
byxor – [ˈbʏksɔr]
- y = a front rounded vowel, somewhere between "i" in "sit" and "u" in "put".
- Stress on the first syllable: BYX-or (with short y).
svarta – [ˈsvar.ta]
- Like "SVAR-ta".
- r is rolled or tapped, depending on dialect.
- Stress on the first syllable.

The main tricky parts for English speakers are the sj-sound in skjorta and the vowel y in byxor.

Why is it Han and not something like det or den?

Han is the personal pronoun for "he" (a male person).

han – he
hon – she
hen – gender-neutral (increasingly common in modern Swedish)

Den and det are usually it (for things, not people) or demonstratives ("that" or "this") depending on context.

Since you’re talking about a male person wearing the clothes, Han har på sig … is the correct pronoun choice.