"He only has a towel on."

Translation: Han har bara en handduk på sig.

[Bernicus]

Does bara have to go after har for this sentence to make sense or are other word orders acceptable too?

[Zmrzlina]

Bara has to go before the word it describes. Compare:

Han har bara en handduk på sig = He only has a towel on

Bara han har en handduk på sig = Only he has a towel on

[Avidon0]

How about 'Han har på sig bara en handduk'?

[martin.mk]

han har på sig bara en handduk - not accepted

And this sounds most natural to my a-few-language-understanding ear. :)

[Namor_Votilav]

Should be good too. But bara natives could tell you for sure :)

[Zmrzlina]

Doesn't sound very natural to me.

[PLLumsdaine]

Is there a rule that explains why this word order isn’t so natural?

[jwbards]

Ögongodis (Does that work in Swedish?)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/60/5d/a0/605da0c1a9e00f51a48166cd9b54103f.jpg

[KteCMHkt]

might the implication be that he is wearing a bath towel (badduk)?

[dagummace]

It normally tells me I could have put "på sig" before the clothing item when I end the sentence with it. I complied this time, and it requured "på sig" at the end this time. Which is really more natural?

[dagummace]

Excuse me. Reverse what I said.

[Zmrzlina]

Both work fine.

[wxfrog]

På sig before handduk is not accepted,

[wolfthewhite]

"Han har bara på sig en handduk" is accepted.
"Han har på sig bara en handduk" is not.

[Taurendil]

So is there just this word for a towel, not differentiating them by size (or rather use)? Since in my L1 we wouldn't call a big towel a 'handtowel'. It sounds strange having only a 'handduk' on because towels used for drying hands are usually quite small.

[kmoriley]

Apparently there are multiple words for towel that use handdukken as the base. https://ne.ord.se/ordbok/svenska/engelska/s%C3%B6k/towel

[Taurendil]

Tack så mycket!