Jeg forstår meningen med sætningen bedre, når læreren forklarer ordstillingen.

Because Danish usually adds the definite article to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like the.

So:

• mening = meaning

• meningen = the meaning

• sætning = sentence

• sætningen = the sentence

• lærer = teacher

• læreren = the teacher

• ordstilling = word order
• ordstillingen = the word order

For these nouns, -en is the common-gender definite ending.

Both are possible in Danish, but meningen med sætningen is a very natural and common way to say the meaning of the sentence.

A native English speaker may expect a possessive structure, but Danish often uses a prepositional phrase instead:

• meningen med sætningen = the meaning of the sentence
• literally: the meaning with/of the sentence

Sætningens mening is understandable, but it can sound a bit more formal or literary in many contexts.

In Danish, med is often used in expressions where English would use of, in, or sometimes no preposition at all.

Here, meningen med sætningen is the standard expression for the meaning of the sentence.

Some fixed Danish patterns work this way:

• problemet med noget = the problem with something
• formålet med noget = the purpose of something
• meningen med noget = the meaning of something

So this is something you mostly learn as a natural Danish pattern.

Bedre means better. It is the comparative form of god/godt.

In this sentence, it works adverbially with forstår:

• Jeg forstår ... bedre = I understand ... better

So it is not describing a noun; it is describing how well the speaker understands.

A useful comparison:

• god = good
• godt = well / good
• bedre = better
• bedst = best

That placement is very natural in Danish:

• Jeg forstår meningen med sætningen bedre

The sentence first gives the thing being understood, and then says that the understanding is better.

English speakers may want to put better earlier, but Danish often sounds more natural with the object before it in sentences like this.

You may also hear other word orders in some contexts, but this version is smooth and standard.

Når is the natural choice here because it means when/whenever in a general or repeated situation.

The sentence is not talking about one single past event. It means something like:

• I understand the meaning better whenever the teacher explains the word order.

Compare:

• når = when / whenever, often for repeated or general situations
• da = when, for a specific past event
• hvis = if

So:

• Når læreren forklarer ordstillingen ... = When/whenever the teacher explains the word order ...

If you said da, it would sound more like one specific time in the past.

Because når læreren forklarer ordstillingen is a subordinate clause.

In Danish, a clause introduced by words like når, at, hvis, fordi, som is often separated with a comma.

You should also know that in modern Danish, the comma before a subordinate clause can be optional depending on the comma style being used. So learners may see both:

• Jeg forstår meningen med sætningen bedre, når læreren forklarer ordstillingen.
• Jeg forstår meningen med sætningen bedre når læreren forklarer ordstillingen.

The version with the comma is completely normal.

Yes, forklarer is present tense.

Danish present tense is often broader than English present tense. Depending on context, it can correspond to:

• explains
• is explaining
• does explain
• sometimes a habitual meaning like explains whenever...

Here, because of når, the sense is general or repeated:

• when/whenever the teacher explains the word order

So English may translate it most naturally as explains rather than is explaining.

Because this is a subordinate clause, not a main clause.

Danish main clauses usually follow the verb-second pattern, but subordinate clauses do not use that same word order in the same way. After når, the normal order is:

• når + subject + verb + ...
• når læreren forklarer ordstillingen

So:

• læreren = subject
• forklarer = verb

Putting the verb before the subject here would sound wrong.

Yes:

• Når læreren forklarer ordstillingen, forstår jeg meningen med sætningen bedre.

This is a very useful thing to notice, because when a subordinate clause comes first in Danish, the main clause still follows the verb-second rule.

So after the fronted clause, Danish says:

• forstår jeg not
• jeg forstår

That is one of the most important word-order patterns in Danish.

Because word order is usually treated as one general system or pattern here, not as several separate word orders.

So:

• ordstillingen = the word order

This refers to the word order being discussed in the sentence, probably the grammatical structure of that sentence or of Danish more generally.

If you used the plural, it would suggest several different word-order patterns being treated as separate items.

It can easily have the broader sense of understand or make sense of.

In this sentence, Jeg forstår meningen med sætningen bedre does not have to mean that the speaker previously understood nothing. It simply means that the speaker understands it more clearly or more fully when the teacher explains the word order.

That is why bedre is so important: it shows improvement, not necessarily a complete change from no understanding to total understanding.