Breakdown of Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
Questions & Answers about Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
Passa sig is an idiomatic, reflexive verb meaning “to be careful / to watch out / to mind what you’re doing.”
In this sentence, Om han inte passar sig means something like:
- If he doesn’t watch out / If he isn’t careful…
It does not mean “fit” or “suit” here. It’s about paying attention so he doesn’t burn the pizza.
Some related examples:
- Passa dig! – Watch out! / Be careful!
- Du får passa dig, annars gör du dig illa. – You have to be careful, otherwise you’ll hurt yourself.
Sig makes passa reflexive and changes the meaning.
- Passa sig = to be careful, to watch out, to mind oneself.
- Passa (without sig) usually means things like:
- to fit / to suit: Tröjan passar honom. – The sweater fits him.
- to be convenient: Det passar bra. – That suits me / works well.
- to look after / keep an eye on: Kan du passa barnen? – Can you look after the children?
So:
- Om han inte passar sig = If he doesn’t watch out.
- Om han inte passar would sound like “If he doesn’t fit / if he isn’t suitable,” which is completely different and wrong in this context.
Yes. Sig is the 3rd‑person reflexive pronoun in Swedish. It corresponds roughly to himself / herself / itself / themselves, depending on the subject.
It’s used when the object refers back to the subject:
- Han passar sig. – He is careful / He watches himself.
- Hon passar sig. – She is careful.
- De passar sig. – They are careful.
A small overview of reflexive object pronouns:
- jag → mig (myself)
- du → dig (yourself)
- han / hon / den / det / de → sig (himself / herself / itself / themselves)
- vi → oss (ourselves)
- ni → er (yourselves, plural)
In passar sig, that sig always points back to whoever is the subject of the clause.
This is a word‑order rule for subordinate clauses (like om‑clauses).
In a subordinate clause introduced by om, the normal order is:
om + subject + sentence adverb (like inte, aldrig, alltid) + verb + …
So we get:
- Om han inte passar sig …
om (subordinator) + han (subject) + inte (negation) + passar (verb) + sig (reflexive)
Putting inte after the verb in this type of clause (Om han passar sig inte) is wrong in standard Swedish.
For comparison, in a main clause the order is different:
- Han passar sig inte. – main clause: subject + verb + inte
- Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen. – subordinate om-clause with inte before the verb.
You can say Om inte han passar sig, but it sounds marked: it puts strong emphasis on han (“if he doesn’t watch out (as opposed to someone else)”).
Neutral, everyday word order is:
- Om han inte passar sig …
So for a normal, non‑emphatic sentence, stick with Om han inte passar sig.
This is the verb‑second (V2) rule in Swedish main clauses.
In a main clause, the finite verb must be in second position, no matter what comes first. In your sentence:
- The entire Om han inte passar sig is one big adverbial (a conditional clause) placed first.
- Therefore the verb of the main clause, bränner, must come second.
- The subject han comes after the verb.
So we get:
- Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
If you start with the subject instead, you keep normal order:
- Han bränner alltid pizzan i ugnen om han inte passar sig.
Both sentences are correct; the difference is which part you put first, but the main‑clause verb‑second rule stays the same.
In a neutral main clause, sentence adverbs like alltid, inte, ofta, kanske normally come right after the subject and verb.
Basic pattern:
(Adverbial) + verb + subject + alltid + rest
So:
- Han bränner alltid pizzan i ugnen. – neutral, natural
- With the om‑clause fronted:
Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
Placing alltid at the very end:
- Han bränner pizzan i ugnen alltid.
or after the object:
- Han bränner pizzan alltid i ugnen.
is possible only with special emphasis or in some spoken styles, and will often sound odd or at least very marked in standard written Swedish. For a learner, it’s much safer to keep:
- … bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
Bränner is the present tense of bränna, a transitive verb: “to burn (something).”
In cooking contexts, bränna något is perfectly normal for burning food, even when it’s just overcooked or charred, not literally on fire.
- Han bränner alltid pizzan. – He always burns the pizza (overbakes it).
Useful contrast:
- bränna – transitive: Jag bränner pizzan. – I burn the pizza.
- brinna – intransitive: Pizzan brinner. – The pizza is burning / on fire.
There is also the cooking expression bränna vid (“to burn onto the pan”):
- Riset brände vid. – The rice burned (stuck and burned in the pot).
But for your sentence, bränna pizzan is the normal, straightforward choice.
Pizzan is the definite singular form: pizza → pizzan (“the pizza”).
In this kind of everyday sentence, Swedes usually talk about the specific pizza he has in the oven at that time, even if the statement is about a repeated habit. Each time, there is “the pizza” he’s cooking, and he burns that pizza.
So:
- Han bränner alltid pizzan i ugnen.
= Every time he makes a pizza, he ends up burning the pizza that’s in the oven.
Saying bränner han alltid pizza i ugnen is unusual: pizza without an article here would sound more like an uncountable mass noun (“he always burns pizza”), which is not the typical way to say it.
Other possible variants, depending on the nuance:
- Han bränner alltid sina pizzor i ugnen. – He always burns his pizzas (plural, many different pizzas).
- Han bränner alltid sin pizza. – He always burns his pizza (emphasising it’s his own).
Both pizzan and sin pizza are grammatically correct; they just focus on slightly different things.
Han bränner alltid pizzan i ugnen.
– Focus on the pizza as the object in that situation (“the pizza in the oven”), whose it is is obvious from context.Han bränner alltid sin pizza i ugnen.
– Uses the reflexive possessive sin (referring back to han).
– Explicitly says: he always burns his own pizza (not someone else’s).
The reflexive possessives work like this:
- sin – for an en‑word noun: sin pizza
- sitt – for an ett‑word noun: sitt hus – his/her/their own house
- sina – for plurals: sina pizzor – his/her/their own pizzas
So:
- Han bränner alltid sin pizza. – He always burns his (own) pizza.
- Han bränner alltid hans pizza. – He always burns another man’s pizza.
In your sentence, pizzan is totally natural; sin pizza just adds explicit possession.
Ugn is the base form (“oven”), and ugnen is the definite singular (“the oven”).
- i ugnen = in the oven (a specific, known oven)
- i ugn = more like in oven / baked (used in recipes to describe a method)
In ordinary conversation about something happening at home, you usually refer to the oven you’re using:
- Han bränner alltid pizzan i ugnen. – He always burns the pizza in the oven.
You might see recipe‑style instructions like:
- Grädda i ugn i 20 minuter. – Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
So in your sentence, i ugnen is the natural choice.
Both om and när are possible, but they have slightly different nuances.
- om = if (conditional, hypothetical/uncertain)
- när = when / whenever (temporal, often something we know or see as a real, repeated event)
In your sentence:
Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
– If he doesn’t watch out, then he burns the pizza (conditional).När han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
– Whenever he doesn’t watch out, he burns the pizza (more like a regular pattern we already know about).
Because the sentence describes a repeated habit, när actually fits very well. Om is also used quite a lot in spoken Swedish in such contexts, so you will hear both. The difference is mostly about whether you present it as a condition (om) or as a known recurring situation (när).
The comma is recommended but not absolutely mandatory in modern Swedish.
Traditional Swedish punctuation (so‑called satskommatering) puts a comma between a fronted subordinate clause and the following main clause, as in:
- Om han inte passar sig, bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
In more relaxed modern writing, some people omit that comma:
- Om han inte passar sig bränner han alltid pizzan i ugnen.
Both versions are acceptable; many teachers and style guides still prefer the comma because it clearly separates the om‑clause from the main clause and makes the structure easier to read.