Learn Hardcore Swedish: Hon vill inte ta tabletter varje dag på grund av sin huvudvärk, utan försöker sova mer. - She does not want to take pills every day because of her headache, but tries to sleep more.

"Hon vill ta inte" is ungrammatical in standard Swedish. The negation almost never comes after the infinitive like that. You put inte after the conjugated (finite) verb (vill) and before the infinitive (ta).

Why is it "ta tabletter" and not something like "äta tabletter"?

In Swedish, you normally use the verb ta (take) with tabletter for medicine:

ta tabletter = take pills / take tablets
ta medicin = take medicine

You only use äta (eat) with things that are clearly food:

äta mat = eat food
äta godis = eat candy

Even though you “swallow” pills, Swedish uses the same collocation as English: take pills, not “eat pills”. So Hon vill inte ta tabletter is the natural idiomatic choice.

Why is it "varje dag" and not "alla dagar" or something else?

Both are possible, but they have slightly different feels:

varje dag = every day (focus on the regular repetition, routine)
alla dagar = all days (focus on the set of days as a whole)

In this sentence, she doesn’t want to take pills as a daily routine, so varje dag is the most natural choice.

Hon vill inte ta tabletter varje dag = she doesn’t want to be someone who takes pills on a daily basis.

What exactly does "på grund av" mean, and how is it used?

på grund av means because of / due to and is followed by a noun phrase:

på grund av sin huvudvärk = because of her headache
på grund av regnet = because of the rain
på grund av vädret = because of the weather

Grammatically, it’s a prepositional phrase. You don’t change the word order like you would with för att (because) introducing a clause. It’s just:

... på grund av + noun phrase

So:

✅ Hon stannade hemma på grund av sin huvudvärk.
✅ Hon stannade hemma, eftersom hon hade huvudvärk. (here, a full clause)

Why is it "sin huvudvärk" and not "hennes huvudvärk"?

Swedish distinguishes between:

sin/sitt/sina = reflexive possessive (“the subject’s own”)
hans / hennes / deras = someone else’s (or at least, not automatically the subject’s)

In this sentence, Hon is the subject and the headache belongs to the same person:

Hon vill inte ta tabletter … på grund av sin huvudvärk.
= She doesn’t want to take pills because of her own headache.

If you wrote:

Hon vill inte ta tabletter … på grund av hennes huvudvärk.

it would most naturally mean:

She (Person A) doesn’t want to take pills because of her (another woman’s, Person B’s) headache.

So sin is used because the possessor is the same as the subject of the clause.

How do I choose between sin, sitt, and sina?

You choose based on the grammatical gender and number of the possessed noun, not the owner:

sin
- en-words (singular):
- sin bok (her/his/their own book)
- sin hund (their own dog)
sitt
- ett-words (singular):
- sitt hus (their own house)
- sitt rum (their own room)
sina
- plural nouns:
- sina böcker (their own books)
- sina hundar (their own dogs)

huvudvärk is an en-word (en huvudvärk), so you use sin huvudvärk.

What does "utan" mean here? I thought it meant "without".

utan has two main uses:

As a preposition = without
- utan socker = without sugar
- utan glasögon = without glasses
As a conjunction = but rather / but instead
It must follow a negation in the first part of the sentence.

In your sentence, it’s the conjunction meaning but rather:

Hon vill inte ta tabletter varje dag på grund av sin huvudvärk, utan försöker sova mer.
= She doesn’t want to take pills every day because of her headache, but instead she tries to sleep more.

So here it does not mean “without”; it’s linking two alternatives after a negation.

Why is there a comma before "utan"?

In Swedish, when utan is used as a conjunction in the sense of “but rather / but instead” after a negation, it usually introduces a contrasting clause and is preceded by a comma:

Jag dricker inte kaffe, utan te.
Hon är inte trött, utan sjuk.
Hon vill inte ta tabletter varje dag, utan försöker sova mer.

The comma marks the boundary between two coordinated parts:
1) a negative statement
2) a contrasting alternative introduced by utan.

Why is it "utan försöker sova mer" and not "utan att försöka sova mer"?

Here utan is coordinating two finite verbs that share the same subject:

Hon vill inte ta tabletter …, utan (hon) försöker sova mer.
The subject hon is simply omitted in the second clause because it’s the same.

This is like English:

“She doesn’t want to take pills, but tries to sleep more.”

If you said utan att försöka sova mer, it changes the structure:

utan att försöka = without trying
utan att försöka sova mer = without trying to sleep more

That would mean something like:
“She doesn’t want to take pills every day because of her headache, without trying to sleep more” — which doesn’t fit the intended meaning. So you keep the finite verb försöker after utan, not att försöka.

Why is "att" missing before "ta"? Shouldn’t it be "vill att ta"?

After Swedish modal verbs (like vill, kan, måste, ska), you drop "att" before the infinitive:

Hon vill ta tabletter. (not vill att ta)
Jag kan prata svenska. (not kan att prata)
Vi måste gå hem. (not måste att gå)

So the correct pattern is:

modal verb + infinitive (without att)

If you add att after a modal, it sounds wrong or at best very odd in standard Swedish.

Why is it "huvudvärk" and not something like a plural form? Can you say "huvudvärkar"?

huvudvärk (headache) is normally used in the singular to talk about the condition in general:

Jag har huvudvärk. = I have a headache / I have a headache problem.

You can technically form a plural huvudvärkar, but it’s rare and usually used only in specific contexts, for example:

talking about different types of headaches
describing separate episodes in a more technical/medical context

In everyday language, you almost always use the singular huvudvärk, even if you mean “I keep getting headaches”. So på grund av sin huvudvärk is completely natural.

Why is it "försöker sova mer" and not "försöker mer sova"?

Swedish word order in verb phrases is fairly strict. The normal order here is:

verb (försöker) + infinitive (sova) + adverb (mer)
försöker sova mer

You usually put mer (more) after the main verb phrase it’s modifying:

sova mer = sleep more
jobba mer = work more
träna mer = exercise more

"försöker mer sova" would sound wrong or at least very unnatural. You could, in a different nuance, say försöker mer (tries more / makes more of an effort), but then mer modifies försöker, not sova, and you’d still keep sova after:

Hon försöker mer att sova. (different meaning: she makes more of an effort to sleep)

In your sentence, the intended meaning is that she wants to sleep more, so försöker sova mer is the correct order.