Learn Hardcore Swedish: När de skämtar tillsammans känner de mindre oro i kroppen. - When they joke together, they feel less anxiety in the body.

när is used for:
- time references that actually happen (past, present, or future)
- repeated or habitual actions
Example:
När de skämtar tillsammans känner de mindre oro i kroppen.
= Whenever/when they joke together, they feel less worry.
om is used when it’s uncertain whether it will happen – more like if:
Example:
Om de skämtar tillsammans, kanske de känner mindre oro i kroppen.
= If they joke together, they might feel less worry.

In your sentence the meaning is a general, habitual situation, so när is correct.

Why is the word order "När de skämtar tillsammans känner de..." and not "När skämtar de tillsammans..."?

In Swedish:

A normal statement (main clause) has verb in second position:
De skämtar tillsammans. (subject = de, verb = skämtar)
A yes/no question usually starts with the verb:
Skämtar de tillsammans?

In your sentence, "När de skämtar tillsammans" is a subordinate clause (a dependent "when"-clause). In subordinate clauses, Swedish does not use verb-second; the order is normally:

subjunction – subject – verb – (other stuff)
När – de – skämtar – tillsammans

Then comes the main clause:

känner – de – mindre oro i kroppen.

If you said "När skämtar de tillsammans...", that would sound like the beginning of a question:
När skämtar de tillsammans? = When do they joke together?

Why is de used here and not dem? I often see both in Swedish.

Standard written Swedish distinguishes:

de = subject form (like English they)
dem = object form (like English them)

In your sentence:

de before skämtar = subject of the verb: de skämtar
de before känner = subject of känner

So de is correct in both places.

Spoken Swedish usually pronounces both de and dem as dom, and in informal writing many people write dom for both. But in standard writing you keep:

de as subject
dem as object or after prepositions

Examples:

De skrattar åt skämtet. (They laugh at the joke.)
Jag gillar dem. (I like them.)

What does skämtar exactly mean? Is it like “joke,” “kid,” or “make fun of”?

The verb skämta means to joke, to joke around, to tell jokes, or to say things in a playful, humorous way.

De skämtar tillsammans.
= They joke together / they’re joking around together.

If you specifically mean making fun of someone in a negative way, you’d more likely use verbs like:

reta (tease)
håna (mock)
göra narr av (make fun of)

So skämta on its own is neutral/positive: just joking, having fun.

Is tillsammans necessary here? Could I just say När de skämtar känner de mindre oro i kroppen?

You can remove tillsammans, and the sentence is still grammatically correct:

När de skämtar känner de mindre oro i kroppen.

However:

tillsammans (together) emphasizes that they are joking with each other, in each other’s company.
Without it, the focus is more on them joking (in general), not necessarily interacting with one another.

So tillsammans adds the nuance that the shared, social joking is what reduces the worry.

Why is känner used here instead of är? In English we’d say “they are less worried,” not “they feel less worry.”

Swedish often uses känna (feel) with nouns for internal states, where English might use to be with adjectives.

Your sentence literally means:

känner de mindre oro i kroppen
= they feel less worry in the body

Two patterns:

känna + noun
- känna oro (feel worry)
- känna glädje (feel joy)
- känna smärta (feel pain)
vara + adjective
- vara orolig(a) (be worried)
- vara glad(a) (be happy)

You could rephrase the sentence as:

När de skämtar tillsammans är de mindre oroliga.
= When they joke together, they are less worried.

Both are natural. The original version highlights the felt physical sensation of worry in the body.

What does oro mean exactly, and how is it different from ångest?

Both relate to negative feelings, but they’re used a bit differently:

oro
- general worry, concern, unease, often milder
- can be mental or physical
- uncountable: mycket oro, mindre oro
ångest
- anxiety, often stronger, heavier, can sound more clinical or dramatic
- can also be uncountable: svår ångest, mycket ångest

In this sentence, oro fits well because it sounds like ordinary worry or nervousness that goes down when they joke together. Ångest would make it sound more intense.

Why is it mindre oro and not färre oro? Both mean “less/fewer,” right?

Swedish distinguishes mindre and färre similarly to English less and fewer:

mindre = less (for uncountable or mass nouns, or for degree)
färre = fewer (for countable things you can count as separate items)

oro (worry) is treated as an uncountable noun, like "water" or "happiness":

mer oro = more worry
mindre oro = less worry

So mindre is correct here.
You’d use färre with countable nouns:

färre personer (fewer people)
färre problem (fewer problems)

What does i kroppen add? Why not just say känner de mindre oro?

i kroppen literally means in the body.

känner de mindre oro
= they feel less worry (in general, emotionally)
känner de mindre oro i kroppen
= they feel less worry in their body – it emphasizes the physical sensation of worry: tension, butterflies, tight chest, etc.

This is a common way in Swedish to highlight that an emotion is physically felt, not just a thought.

Technically, you can drop i kroppen, but you would lose that physical nuance.

Why is it i kroppen and not i deras kroppar (“in their bodies”)?

Swedish often uses a singular definite noun for body parts and the body in general, where English would use a possessive and often plural:

Jag har ont i huvudet.
= My head hurts. (literally: I have pain in the head.)
Hon har ont i ryggen.
= Her back hurts.

Similarly:

oro i kroppen
= worry/anxiety in the body (meaning “in their body/inside them” in a general sense)

Saying i deras kroppar would sound oddly literal and anatomical here, as if you are being very technical about multiple separate bodies. i kroppen is the natural idiomatic choice.

Is there supposed to be a comma after tillsammans? I often see commas after clauses starting with när.

Traditional Swedish punctuation would usually put a comma between a subordinate clause and the following main clause, especially when the subordinate clause comes first:

När de skämtar tillsammans, känner de mindre oro i kroppen.

In modern, less formal Swedish, this comma is often left out if the sentence is short and clear:

När de skämtar tillsammans känner de mindre oro i kroppen.

Both versions are acceptable. In school grammar and more formal writing, the comma is still often recommended, but everyday texts frequently omit it.

How would the meaning change if I put it in the past: När de skämtade tillsammans kände de mindre oro i kroppen?

Changing skämtar → skämtade and känner → kände moves the statement into the past:

När de skämtar tillsammans känner de mindre oro i kroppen.
= Whenever/when they joke together (in general, nowadays), they feel less worry.
När de skämtade tillsammans kände de mindre oro i kroppen.
= When they joked together (back then), they felt less worry.

The structure stays the same; only the time frame and aspect (habitual now vs. habitual/recurring in the past) change.

Could I say När de skämtar med varandra instead of tillsammans?

Yes, you can say:

När de skämtar med varandra känner de mindre oro i kroppen.

Both tillsammans and med varandra express that they interact with each other, but there’s a slight nuance:

tillsammans = together, jointly; they are doing an activity together.
med varandra = with each other; explicitly highlights the mutual interaction.

In this context, they’re very close in meaning, and both are perfectly natural.