Vi går strax hem, men jag ska bara skriva klart ett kort meddelande först.

Swedish often uses the present tense for planned or expected future actions, especially when there is a time word that makes the meaning clear.

So Vi går strax hem is literally We go home shortly, but in natural English it means We’re going home soon or We’ll be heading home shortly.

Strax means soon, shortly, or in a moment.

It suggests that something will happen quite soon, but not necessarily immediately. In everyday speech, it is a very common way to talk about the near future.

Because hem often works as an adverb meaning home or homewards. It already contains the idea of direction, so you do not need a preposition like till.

Common examples:

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

So hem here is not just a place noun; it functions more like a directional word.

Here ska expresses intention or near future. In this sentence, jag ska means something like I’m going to or I will.

So:

• jag ska skriva = I’m going to write / I will write

In everyday Swedish, ska is extremely common for future plans, intentions, and things the speaker is about to do.

After ska, the next verb normally comes in the bare infinitive, without att.

So you say:

• jag ska skriva

not:

• jag ska att skriva

This is similar to English I will write, where write also appears without to.

Skriva klart means finish writing or write to completion.

The word klart is often used with verbs to show that an action gets finished:

• äta klart = finish eating
• läsa klart = finish reading
• skriva klart = finish writing

So jag ska bara skriva klart ... means I just need to finish writing ...

In a normal main clause, Swedish adverbs like bara often come after the finite verb.

Here the finite verb is ska, so the natural order is:

• jag ska bara skriva klart ...

This placement makes bara modify the rest of the action: I’m just going to finish writing ...

They do different things:

• bara = just / only
• först = first / before that

So the speaker is saying:

• I just need to do one thing
• and that thing happens before going home

That is why both words can appear together naturally:

• jag ska bara skriva klart ett kort meddelande först

In idiomatic English, the whole idea is something like but I just need to finish writing a short message first.

Here kort is the adjective short.

So:

• ett kort meddelande = a short message

It is not the noun kort meaning card in this sentence. If kort were a noun, it would be a different structure, such as:

• ett kort = a card

Because meddelande is an ett-word in Swedish, so its indefinite form is:

• ett meddelande = a message

That is why the sentence says ett kort meddelande.

Because men is a coordinating conjunction. After men, you still use normal main-clause word order.

So:

• men jag ska ... = correct

There is no inversion here because the subject jag comes first in that clause.

You would get inversion if some other element came first, for example:

• Nu ska jag skriva klart ... = Now I’m going to finish writing ...

Yes. You could also say Vi ska strax gå hem.

Both are possible, but they are slightly different in feel:

• Vi går strax hem sounds like a fairly direct statement about what is happening soon
• Vi ska strax gå hem makes the future/intention a little more explicit

In everyday Swedish, the simple present is very common for near-future actions, so the original sentence sounds natural.