Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen lade jag strykjärnet bredvid spegeln.

Efter att means after when it introduces a whole clause:

• Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen = after I had ironed the dress

If you follow efter with just a noun, you do not use att:

• efter middagen = after dinner
• efter jobbet = after work

So:

• efter + noun
• efter att + clause

Hade strukit is the past perfect (pluperfect), used for an action that happened before another action in the past.

In this sentence:

1. First, I ironed the dress.
2. Then, I put the iron beside the mirror.

So Swedish uses:

• hade strukit = had ironed
• lade = put

That matches the English pattern very closely:

• After I had ironed the dress, I put the iron beside the mirror.

If you said Efter att jag strök klänningen..., it would sound less clearly like one action happened before the other.

Strukit is the supine form of the verb stryka.

Swedish uses the supine after har, hade, ska ha, etc.

For this verb:

• infinitive: stryka = to iron / to stroke / sometimes other meanings depending on context
• past tense: strök
• supine: strukit

So:

• jag strök = I ironed
• jag hade strukit = I had ironed

This is a very common pattern in Swedish verbs.

No. Stryka has several meanings, and context tells you which one is meant.

Common meanings include:

• to iron clothes
• to stroke or to run your hand over
• to cross out or delete
• in some contexts, to remove

Here, because of klänningen and strykjärnet, it clearly means to iron.

Klänningen is the definite singular form: the dress.

Swedish usually adds definiteness to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like the.

• en klänning = a dress
• klänningen = the dress

So jag hade strukit klänningen means I had ironed the dress.

The sentence is talking about a specific dress, not just any dress.

Same reason: strykjärnet is the definite form, meaning the iron.

• ett strykjärn = an iron
• strykjärnet = the iron

Here the speaker means the specific iron they had just used.

The basic noun is:

• en spegel = a mirror

Its definite form is:

• spegeln = the mirror

With many en-words ending in -el, Swedish often drops the extra vowel in the definite form:

• spegel → spegeln
• cykel → cykeln
• nyckel → nyckeln

So spegeln is the normal form.

This is because Swedish follows the V2 rule in main clauses: the finite verb usually comes in the second position.

The opening clause Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen takes the first position. That means the finite verb of the main clause must come next:

• Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen lade jag strykjärnet bredvid spegeln.

Literally structured like:

1. After I had ironed the dress
2. put
3. I
4. the iron beside the mirror

This kind of inversion is very common in Swedish:

• Igår gick jag hem. = Yesterday I went home.
• När jag kom fram såg jag henne. = When I arrived, I saw her.

Yes. Lade is the standard past tense of lägga (to lay / put).

Common forms are:

• infinitive: lägga
• present: lägger
• past: lade
• supine: lagt

So:

• jag lade boken på bordet = I put the book on the table

You may also hear la in speech and informal writing, but lade is the standard full form.

Lägga is used when you lay or put something down, especially onto a surface or into a position.

Here, an iron is being placed beside the mirror, so lade is natural.

Very roughly:

• lägga = lay/put down
• sätta = set/place, often more upright or more general depending on context
• ställa = put something standing upright

So lade jag strykjärnet suggests placing it down in a lying position, which fits an iron well.

Bredvid means beside, next to, or by the side of.

So:

• bredvid spegeln = beside the mirror

It is a preposition, so it works like English beside/next to:

• stolen står bredvid bordet = the chair is next to the table

Because Swedish usually expresses definiteness by adding an ending to the noun.

Examples from the sentence:

• klänningen = the dress
• strykjärnet = the iron
• spegeln = the mirror

This is one of the biggest differences from English. Instead of a separate article like the, Swedish often uses a suffix.

No. Even if you write a comma, Swedish still keeps the V2 word order in the main clause.

So the correct pattern is:

• Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen lade jag strykjärnet bredvid spegeln.

Not:

• Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen jag lade...

The comma does not change the grammar.

In standard written Swedish, efter att is the normal choice before a clause.

• Efter att jag hade strukit klänningen...

Learners should use efter att here. You may sometimes notice variation in casual language, but efter att is the safe and standard form for this kind of sentence.

It is quite close to English:

• Efter att = After
• jag hade strukit klänningen = I had ironed the dress
• lade jag strykjärnet = I put the iron
• bredvid spegeln = beside the mirror

The biggest differences are:

1. Swedish uses definite endings instead of a separate the
2. Swedish uses V2 word order, so after the opening clause you get lade jag, not jag lade

So the sentence is very understandable if you already know those two features.