Jag vaknade tidigare i morse, så jag hann dricka kaffe före mötet.

Vaknade is the past tense of vakna, which means to wake up.

• jag vaknar = I wake up / I am waking up
• jag vaknade = I woke up

In this sentence, the speaker is telling a completed event in the past, so the past tense is used.

Also, vakna is usually not reflexive in Swedish, so you say jag vaknade, not something like jag vaknade mig.

Swedish often uses the simple past when talking about a completed event in a specific past time frame.

Here, the sentence includes i morse = this morning, which places the action in a clear past context. Because of that, vaknade and hann sound natural.

Compare:

• Jag vaknade tidigare i morse = I woke up earlier this morning
• Jag har vaknat tidigt idag = I have woken up early today

The perfect can work in some contexts, but in a narrative about what happened this morning, the simple past is the normal choice.

Tidigare means earlier.

It is the comparative form of tidigt, which means early.

• tidigt = early
• tidigare = earlier

In this sentence, tidigare i morse means earlier this morning. Swedish often uses tidigare without explicitly saying what it is earlier than. The comparison is understood from context.

They are similar, but not identical.

• tidigt i morse = early this morning
• tidigare i morse = earlier this morning

Tidigt i morse focuses on the time being early in the morning.

Tidigare i morse is comparative. It suggests earlier than usual, or earlier than some other point of reference.

So if someone says:

• Jag vaknade tidigt i morse = I woke up early this morning
• Jag vaknade tidigare i morse = I woke up earlier this morning

the second one more strongly suggests a comparison.

Yes. I morse is a very common fixed expression meaning this morning.

It refers specifically to the morning of the current day from the speaker’s perspective.

Related expressions:

• i dag = today
• i går = yesterday
• i morgon = tomorrow
• i kväll = tonight / this evening
• i morse = this morning

You may also see imorse written as one word in informal writing, but i morse is the standard form.

Here, så means so or therefore.

It connects the first clause and the second clause:

• Jag vaknade tidigare i morse = I woke up earlier this morning
• så jag hann dricka kaffe före mötet = so I had time to drink coffee before the meeting

It shows a result:

I woke up earlier, so I had time to drink coffee.

Hann is the past tense of hinna.

Hinna means something like:

• to have time to
• to manage to in time
• to get the chance to before it is too late

So:

• jag hann dricka kaffe = I had time to drink coffee / I managed to drink coffee before I had to do something else

This is not exactly the same as could.
Kunde often means was able to, but hann specifically includes the idea of enough time being available.

Compare:

• Jag kunde dricka kaffe = I was able to drink coffee
• Jag hann dricka kaffe = I had time to drink coffee

In this sentence, hann is the best choice because the meeting creates a time limit.

After hinna, Swedish uses the bare infinitive, without att.

So you say:

• jag hann dricka kaffe
• not jag hann att dricka kaffe

This is similar to several other Swedish verbs that are followed directly by an infinitive, such as:

• kan komma = can come
• vill äta = want to eat
• måste gå = must go
• hinner läsa = have time to read

So dricka is correct here.

Because kaffe here is being used as an uncountable mass noun, like coffee in English.

So:

• dricka kaffe = drink coffee

When you are talking about coffee in general, or the substance itself, you usually do not use an article.

But ett kaffe can be used when you mean:

• one coffee
• one cup of coffee
• one serving/order of coffee

For example:

• Jag dricker kaffe varje morgon = I drink coffee every morning
• Jag tar ett kaffe = I’ll have a coffee

In your sentence, the general idea of drinking coffee is intended, so kaffe without an article is natural.

Both can often be translated as before, but they are used a little differently.

• före is mainly a preposition
• innan is often a conjunction or adverb, though it can sometimes also appear before a noun phrase in modern Swedish

In careful, standard usage:

• före mötet = before the meeting
• innan mötet börjar = before the meeting starts

So in this sentence, före mötet is very natural because mötet is a noun phrase, not a full clause.

Mötet is the definite form, meaning the meeting.

• ett möte = a meeting
• mötet = the meeting

Swedish often uses the definite form when the thing is specific and known from context. Here, the speaker means a particular meeting that both speaker and listener can identify.

So:

• före mötet = before the meeting

If you said före ett möte, that would mean before a meeting, which sounds less specific.

Yes, you could absolutely say that:

• Tidigare i morse vaknade jag, så jag hann dricka kaffe före mötet.

That is also correct.

This is a useful example of Swedish V2 word order in main clauses. In Swedish main clauses, the verb usually comes in the second position.

So if you start with the time expression Tidigare i morse, the verb must come next:

• Tidigare i morse vaknade jag

Not:

• Tidigare i morse jag vaknade

The original sentence starts with Jag, so the normal order is:

• Jag vaknade tidigare i morse

Both versions are grammatical; they just place emphasis slightly differently.