Word
Färgar du håret, blir frisyren helt annorlunda.
Meaning
If you dye your hair, the hairstyle will be completely different.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Färgar du håret, blir frisyren helt annorlunda.
du
you (singular)
bli
to become
håret
the hair
annorlunda
differently
Questions & Answers about Färgar du håret, blir frisyren helt annorlunda.
Why use blir here instead of kommer att vara for "will be"?
The verb bli means "to become" or "to get", and it is the most natural way in Swedish to describe a future change of state. Since dyeing your hair causes a change, blir is used together with the predicative adjective annorlunda to show that the hairstyle "will become" or "will be" different as a result.
Where is the word for "if" in the first half of the sentence?
It was dropped! In Swedish, you can create an "if" clause simply by starting the sentence with the verb. Färgar du håret literally looks like "Dye you the hair", but it means "If you dye your hair". You could also say Om du färgar håret, but the verb-first version is very common.
Why is it blir frisyren instead of frisyren blir after the comma?
This is the strict Swedish V2 (verb-second) rule. The entire "if" clause (Färgar du håret) counts as the first piece of information in the main sentence. To keep the main verb in the second position, blir must come immediately after the comma, before its subject frisyren.
The English translation says "your hair", but the Swedish uses håret ("the hair"). Why?
When talking about body parts, hair, or clothes, Swedish usually uses the definite article (the -et in håret) rather than a possessive pronoun like ditt (your). As long as it is obvious from the context whose hair it is, you just say "the hair".