Learn Hardcore Swedish: Tiden går fort när jag dricker kaffe.

In Swedish you express “time” in the definite form when you talk about the concept of time in general. Tid is “time” (indefinite), tiden is “the time.” Even though English says “time goes fast,” Swedish uses the definite form (tiden) to refer to that ongoing, specific idea of “time as it passes.”

What does går mean here? I know gå usually means “to walk.”

Literally, gå is “to go” or “to walk,” but it’s very common in Swedish to say tiden går (“time goes”) meaning “time passes.” It’s an idiom: you wouldn’t walk time forward—it simply means “pass,” “move on,” or “elapse.”

Why is the adverb fort used and not snabbt? Don’t both mean “fast”?

Both fort and snabbt translate as “fast” or “quickly,” but they have slightly different uses:

fort is more colloquial and often used with verbs like gå, stå, etc. (“gå fort” = pass quickly).
snabbt is a more general adverb of speed, often used with action verbs like läsa snabbt (“read quickly”).
Here, gå fort is the idiomatic way to say “pass quickly.”

Why is fort placed after går? In English, “fast” can come before or after the verb.

Swedish adverb word order in a simple main clause is typically: Subject – Verb – Adverb – Object/Complement. So you get Tiden går fort. If you swapped them, it would sound awkward or archaic.

Why is när used to introduce the clause “I drink coffee”? Is it the same as “while”?

När means “when” or “whenever.” It can sometimes overlap with English “while,” but grammatically när simply introduces a time clause. Medan could be used for a stronger sense of “while” (emphasizing simultaneous duration), but here när is perfectly natural to say “when/whenever I drink coffee.”

Why doesn’t the verb and subject invert after när (i.e., dricker jag)?

In Swedish, inversion of verb and subject happens after certain adverbs when they start a main clause (e.g., Idag dricker jag kaffe?). But a när-clause is a subordinate clause, and subordinate clauses in Swedish keep normal word order: Subject – Verb – Object. Hence när jag dricker kaffe, not när dricker jag kaffe.

Why is there no article before kaffe? Wouldn’t “the coffee” or “a coffee” be needed?

Kaffe is an uncountable noun here, meaning “coffee” in general. In Swedish you simply say dricka kaffe for “drink coffee.” If you meant a specific cup of coffee, you might say en kopp kaffe (“a cup of coffee”).

Swedish doesn’t say “time flies” like English. Why går fort instead of something with flyga?

Swedish idiomatically uses gå fort or rinna iväg (“run away”) to describe time passing quickly. You can say tiden flyger in a very literal or poetic sense, but it’s not the everyday expression. The most natural, colloquial phrase is tiden går fort.