I dag lærer vi udtrykket “skal til at”, som vi bruger, når noget sker lige om lidt.

Because Danish is a verb-second language in main clauses. That means the finite verb usually comes in the second position.

• Neutral order: Vi lærer udtrykket i dag.
• When you move I dag to the front for emphasis, the verb must stay second: I dag lærer vi udtrykket.

So the subject vi moves after the verb.

Udtrykket means the expression.

The basic noun is:

• et udtryk = an expression

Because it is neuter (et-word), the definite singular form is:

• udtrykket = the expression

So the sentence says the expression skal til at, not just an expression.

You normally use it like this:

subject + skal til at + infinitive

Examples:

• Jeg skal til at spise. = I’m about to eat.
• Hun skal til at gå. = She’s about to leave.
• Det skal til at regne. = It’s about to rain.

In your example sentence, skal til at is being mentioned as a phrase, so there is no following verb after it.

Som introduces a relative clause, like that or which in English.

So:

• udtrykket ..., som vi bruger ... means
• the expression ..., that we use ...

It connects udtrykket to the explanation that follows.

English can often drop that:

• the expression (that) we use

Danish usually keeps som here.

Not naturally in this sentence.

Here, som refers to udtrykket, and inside the clause it works like the object of bruger:

• vi bruger [udtrykket]

Since the missing element is the thing being used, som is the right choice.

Der is more often used when the relative word is the subject of the relative clause, for example:

• manden, der kommer = the man who is coming

But here it is not the subject, so som is the normal form.

Here når means when.

It is used for something that happens or is expected to happen:

• når noget sker lige om lidt = when something is about to happen / when something happens very soon

Hvis means if and introduces a condition:

• Hvis det regner, bliver vi hjemme. = If it rains, we’ll stay home.

So:

• når = when
• hvis = if

Because Danish often uses the present tense for future meaning, especially when the time reference is already clear from context.

In this sentence, the future idea comes from:

• lige om lidt = very soon / in a moment

So sker is grammatically present tense, but the whole phrase clearly points to something that is about to happen.

This is very normal in Danish.

Naturally, it means:

• in a moment
• very soon
• in just a little while

Literally, the parts are roughly:

• lige = just / exactly
• om lidt = in a little while

Together, lige om lidt gives a strong sense that something will happen very soon.

The commas mark subordinate clauses.

In your sentence:

• som vi bruger
• når noget sker lige om lidt

Both are dependent parts of the sentence, so Danish often separates them with commas.

This can feel different from English, because Danish comma rules are not always the same as English ones. Also, in modern Danish you may see some variation in whether writers use the so-called start comma before subordinate clauses. So the comma placement may look a little different depending on style, but what you see here is very common.

In careful speech, you can think of it roughly as:

• skal ≈ sgal
• til at often gets reduced and may sound almost like tila

So in fast speech, the whole chunk may sound something like:

• sgal tila

The exact pronunciation depends on the speaker, and Danish reductions can be hard to catch at first. The most useful thing is to learn it as one fixed chunk:

skal til at

rather than trying to pronounce each word very separately.