Swedish verb· top 100 most common

bli

become, get, be/bliː/

How bli is used

Bli means to become or get, and it is also used to form the passive and to talk about the future: det blir regn i morgon, “it's going to rain tomorrow”. Its forms are blir, blev, blivit.

Meaning

become; get; be

In Swedish: börja vara, komma att vara

Conjugation

Conjugation of bli (become)
Infinitive	att bli	to become
Present	blir	jag blir
Past	blev	jag blev
Supine	blivit	used after har / hade
Perfect	har blivit	jag har blivit
Past perfect	hade blivit	jag hade blivit
Future	ska bli	or: kommer att bli
Conditional	skulle bli	jag skulle bli

Group 4: strong and irregular verbs. Strong verbs change their vowel and have a supine in -it (skriva, skrev, skrivit); irregular ones such as göra and ha follow no pattern. Both have to be learned one by one. Swedish verbs don't change for person: jag, du, hon, vi and de all use blir. See the four verb groups explained.

Practise bli

1 / 2

Yesterday I … (bli). Which is the past tense?

bli in a sentence

Hon vill bli läkare.
She wants to become a doctor.
Det blev kallt i går.
It got cold yesterday.
Vad blir det?
What will it be? (in a shop: “What can I get you?”)
bli lärare
become a teacher
bli med barn
become pregnant
bli sjuk
fall ill
två och två blir fyra
two and two make four
en blivande skådespelare
an actor-to-be
mjölken blir billigare 1 juli
the price of milk will come down on 1st July
följden blev att beslutet uppsköts
as a result, the decision was postponed

Questions

What does bli mean in English?

bli means “become, get”.

What is the past tense of bli?

The past tense of bli is blev (“jag blev”). The supine is blivit, used in “jag har blivit”.

What is the present tense of bli?

blir, the same for every person: jag blir, du blir, vi blir.

Where the course teaches it

Origin

Apocopic form of bliva, from Old Swedish bliva, from Middle Low German blîven (“to remain”), from Old Saxon bilīvan, from Proto-West Germanic *bilīban, from Proto-Germanic *bilībaną.

Nearby common words

bli is number 59 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

55kom came
56säga to say, to tell
57oss us
58man man, person
60får sheep
61er you, your
62ut out, all over
63dem them, them; accusative/dative of de

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Sources: Folkets lexikon (CC BY-SA 2.5) and Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), edited by Lingolib. Recording: Wikimedia Commons. Browse the dictionary