Learn Danish: Hendes timing ødelægger sikkert altid bare joken. - Her timing probably always just ruins the joke.

When multiple central adverbs appear together in the mid-field, Danish follows a strict hierarchy. Adverbs expressing the speaker's attitude or probability (sikkert) come first. Next come adverbs of time or frequency (altid), and finally focusing or restrictive adverbs (bare).

Doesn't sikkert usually mean "surely" or "certainly"? Why is it translated as "probably"?

This is a tricky false friend for English speakers. While the adjective sikker means "sure" or "safe", the bare adverb sikkert almost always translates to "probably" or "most likely" in conversational Danish. If you wanted to express absolute certainty, you would instead use a phrase like helt sikkert or bestemt.

If we started the sentence with the object (joken) for emphasis, what would happen to this long string of adverbs?

By moving joken to the front, the verb ødelægger must stay in the second position to satisfy the V2 rule. The subject hendes timing then immediately follows the verb, pushing the entire adverb cluster to the end while keeping its exact internal order: Joken ødelægger hendes timing sikkert altid bare.

How do English loanwords like "joke" and "timing" work with Danish grammar here?

They are completely integrated into normal Danish grammar and generally take the common gender (en-words). To say "the joke", you simply attach the standard definite suffix to the loanword, giving you joken.