När hon kom hem, sprang barnet fram till henne.

Because Swedish has V2 word order in main clauses: the finite verb must come in the second position.

Here, the sentence begins with the time clause När hon kom hem. That whole clause counts as the first element, so the finite verb in the main clause must come next:

• När hon kom hem, sprang barnet fram till henne.

If you started directly with the subject, you would say:

• Barnet sprang fram till henne när hon kom hem.

So both patterns are possible, but once the sentence starts with När hon kom hem, the verb sprang has to come before barnet.

Here när means when and introduces a subordinate clause:

• När hon kom hem = When she came home

In Swedish, just like in English, när is often used for time clauses. It tells us when the action in the main clause happened.

They are both past tense forms.

• kommer → kom = comes / came
• springer → sprang = runs / ran

Both are common strong verbs, so they do not form the past tense with -de or -te.

So:

• hon kom hem = she came home
• barnet sprang fram = the child ran forward

In Swedish, hem often works like an adverb meaning home, especially after verbs of motion such as gå, åka, komma, and springa.

So Swedish says:

• komma hem = come home
• gå hem = go home
• åka hem = go home / travel home

This is very similar to English, where we also usually say come home, not come to home.

Barnet is the definite singular form: the child.

• ett barn = a child
• barnet = the child

The noun barn is a neuter noun (ett word). In the definite singular, you add -et:

• barn → barnet

So the sentence is talking about the child, not just a child.

Because after a preposition like till, Swedish uses the object form of the pronoun.

• hon = she (subject form)
• henne = her (object form)

So:

• hon kom hem = she came home
• fram till henne = up to her

This is like English:

• she came home
• the child ran to her

Fram till henne means something like up to her or toward her until reaching her.

The word fram often adds the sense of forward or up to someone/something. So:

• springa till henne = run to her
• springa fram till henne = run up to her

Using fram makes the movement feel a bit more vivid and immediate.

Yes. You could say:

• När hon kom hem, sprang barnet till henne.

That still makes sense and means roughly When she came home, the child ran to her.

But fram till henne is more idiomatic if you want the sense of the child running up to her. It gives a clearer picture of the movement.

In modern Swedish, the comma is often optional before the main clause, especially in shorter sentences.

So both of these are possible:

• När hon kom hem, sprang barnet fram till henne.
• När hon kom hem sprang barnet fram till henne.

The comma can make the sentence easier to read, but it is not always required.

Yes. Swedish allows different word orders depending on what you want to emphasize.

For example:

• När hon kom hem, sprang barnet fram till henne.
• Barnet sprang fram till henne när hon kom hem.

Both are natural. The first version puts focus on the time situation first: when she came home. The second starts with the child.

But remember: if the sentence begins with När hon kom hem, then the main clause must keep V2 order, so it must be sprang barnet, not barnet sprang.

Because in Swedish syntax, an entire clause at the beginning of a sentence can function as a single sentence element.

So in:

• När hon kom hem, sprang barnet fram till henne

the first element is the whole subordinate clause:

• När hon kom hem

That means the next position is the verb:

• sprang

and then comes the subject:

• barnet

This is a very important Swedish pattern and appears often with sentence-openers like:

• När jag vaknade, började det regna.
• Efter jobbet gick vi hem.
• I går såg jag henne.

In all of these, the verb comes before the subject if something else is placed first.