Learn Hardcore Danish: Mødet er tidligt om morgenen. - The meeting is early in the morning.

So Mødet er tidligt om morgenen literally has mødet = the meeting.
You use the definite form because you are talking about one specific meeting that both speaker and listener know about (a scheduled meeting), not just any random meeting.

Why is the verb er used here – is this present tense or future?

Er is the present tense of at være (to be). Danish, like English, often uses the present tense to talk about scheduled future events when the time is clear from context:

Mødet er tidligt om morgenen. = The meeting is early in the morning (on that day / tomorrow / on Monday, etc.)
Toget kommer klokken otte. = The train comes at eight (o’clock).

So grammatically it is present tense, but in meaning it can refer to the future, just like English “The meeting is tomorrow at nine.”

Why is it tidligt and not tidlig?

Tidlig is the base adjective (early), and tidligt is the corresponding adverb form (roughly early‑ly).

et tidligt møde = an early meeting (adjective before a noun)
Mødet er tidligt. = The meeting is early. (adverb describing when it is)

In this sentence, tidligt is not describing the meeting as a kind of meeting, but the time of the meeting, so the adverb form tidligt is used.

A useful pattern to notice:

hurtig → hurtigt (quick → quickly)
rolig → roligt (calm → calmly)
tidlig → tidligt (early → early in an adverbial sense)

Could I say Mødet er om morgenen tidligt instead?

That word order is not natural in Danish. The normal order is:

Mødet er tidligt om morgenen.

Rough guideline: small adverbs like tidligt, ofte, sandsynligvis usually come before a full time expression like om morgenen, i morgen, klokken otte:

Mødet er tidligt om morgenen.
Mødet er sandsynligvis klokken otte i morgen.

Putting tidligt after om morgenen (… om morgenen tidligt) is possible only in very special emphasis and sounds odd or poetic; you should avoid it as a learner.

Why is it om morgenen and not i morgen?

Om morgenen and i morgen mean very different things:

om morgenen = in the morning (time of day)
i morgen = tomorrow (the next day)

So:

Mødet er tidligt om morgenen.
→ The meeting is early in the morning (on some day).
Mødet er i morgen.
→ The meeting is tomorrow.

You can combine them if you want to say early tomorrow morning:

Mødet er tidligt i morgen tidlig.
(More natural spoken Danish: Vi skal mødes i morgen tidlig.)

Why is it morgenen with -en at the end, and not just morgen?

Morgen (morning) is a common‑gender noun:

en morgen = a morning
morgenen = the morning

In time expressions, Danish often uses the definite form with om to mean in the X / at X‑time in a general or habitual way:

om morgenen = in the morning
om aftenen = in the evening
om natten = at night
om vinteren = in (the) winter

So om morgenen is the standard expression; om morgen without -en is wrong in this meaning.

Can I move om morgenen to the front of the sentence?

Yes. Then the sentence becomes:

Om morgenen er mødet tidligt.

Danish main clauses are verb‑second (V2), which means the finite verb (er) must be in second position.
When you move om morgenen to the front, the subject (mødet) has to come after er:

Mødet (subject) er tidligt om morgenen.
Om morgenen er mødet tidligt.

Both are correct. Fronting om morgenen puts more emphasis on the time of day.

What does the preposition om mean here?

In this sentence, om is a time preposition. With parts of the day and similar time words, om often corresponds to English in or at:

om morgenen = in the morning
om aftenen = in the evening
om søndagen = on Sundays

With numbers of hours/days, om can also mean in:

om to timer = in two hours
om tre dage = in three days

In other contexts, om can mean about (en bog om Danmark = a book about Denmark), but here it is purely temporal.

How would I say “The meeting is very early in the morning” in Danish?

Add meget (very) before tidligt:

Mødet er meget tidligt om morgenen.

Other common intensifiers you could use instead of meget:

virkelig tidligt = really early
ret tidligt = pretty early
temmelig tidligt = rather early

The position stays the same: intensifier → tidligt → om morgenen.

How do you pronounce Mødet er tidligt om morgenen?

A rough IPA transcription (standard Danish) is:

[ˈmøːðət ˈæɐ̯ ˈtiðlit ʌm ˈmɒːɐ̯nən]

Very approximate English‑style guidance:

Mødet ≈ MØ‑ðet
- ø like French peu or German schön
- the d is very soft, almost like an English th but weaker
er ≈ short air (very quick, almost just a vowel)
tidligt ≈ TEEL‑lit (with a very soft d, and the last t is weak)
om ≈ om / um
morgenen ≈ MOR‑nen, with a soft almost‑disappearing g and a reduced last syllable

Native Danish tends to “swallow” many consonants, so you’ll hear the whole sentence run together quite smoothly.

Does Mødet er tidligt om morgenen refer to one specific morning or to mornings in general?

The sentence by itself is ambiguous; context decides.

With mødet (the meeting) in the definite form, most often you are talking about a specific scheduled meeting (for example, tomorrow’s meeting):
“On that day, the meeting is early in the morning.”
If you wanted to talk about meetings in general, you would more typically pluralize:
Møder er ofte tidligt om morgenen. = Meetings are often early in the morning.

So in everyday use, people will usually understand it as referring to a particular meeting whose date is already known from the context.

Are there other common ways to say something like this in Danish?

Yes, some natural variants are:

Mødet ligger tidligt om morgenen.
(The meeting is scheduled early in the morning.)
Mødet er tidligt i morgen.
(The meeting is early tomorrow. – doesn’t explicitly say morning.)
Vi skal mødes i morgen tidlig.
(We are meeting early tomorrow morning.)

What you generally do not say in Danish is ✗ i morgenen for this meaning; use om morgenen or i morgen (tidlig) instead.