Jag kände inte igen kvinnan i receptionen först, men sedan kom jag ihåg att hon hade hjälpt mig förut.

Because känna igen is a particle verb in Swedish. It means to recognize.

In main clauses, the finite verb often stays early in the sentence, while the particle can appear later:

• Jag kände inte igen kvinnan = I did not recognize the woman

So even though kände and igen are split, they still belong together as one meaning unit: kände igen.

It is just the normal idiomatic expression. Literally, känna means know / feel / be familiar with, and igen means again, so the idea is something like know again or identify on seeing again.

Some examples:

• Jag känner igen honom. = I recognize him.
• Känner du igen den här låten? = Do you recognize this song?

You should learn känna igen as a fixed expression.

In a main clause, Swedish usually places inte after the finite verb.

So:

• Jag kände inte igen kvinnan.

This is normal Swedish word order:

• subject: Jag
• finite verb: kände
• negation: inte

Compare:

• Jag kommer inte. = I am not coming.
• Hon såg inte bilen. = She did not see the car.

Because kvinnan is the definite form, meaning the woman.

Swedish often adds the definite article as an ending:

• en kvinna = a woman
• kvinnan = the woman

Since the sentence refers to a specific woman, Swedish uses kvinnan.

It means in the reception or more naturally in English, at the reception desk / in reception.

Here:

• reception = reception, front desk, lobby reception area
• receptionen = the reception

So kvinnan i receptionen means the woman at the reception desk or the woman in reception.

Because Swedish is referring to a specific reception area, so it uses the definite form:

• en reception = a reception / front desk
• receptionen = the reception

In phrases like kvinnan i receptionen, Swedish often uses the definite form where English also uses the:

• the woman in the reception
• kvinnan i receptionen

Here först means at first or initially, not first in the sense of number one.

So:

• Jag kände inte igen kvinnan i receptionen först = I didn’t recognize the woman at the reception at first

This is a very common use of först.

Compare:

• Först förstod jag ingenting. = At first I understood nothing.
• Vi äter först, sedan går vi. = We’ll eat first, then we’ll go.

Because Swedish main clauses follow the verb-second rule, often called V2.

When a sentence starts with something other than the subject, the finite verb must still come in the second position.

So:

• Sedan kom jag ihåg = Then I remembered

Breakdown:

• first position: sedan
• second position: kom
• subject after the verb: jag

If you started with the subject, it would be:

• Jag kom ihåg sedan — but this would sound unnatural here

A similar example:

• I går såg jag henne. = Yesterday I saw her.

Not:

• I går jag såg henne

Yes, kom normally means came, but in the expression komma ihåg, it means remember.

So komma ihåg is another fixed expression:

• jag kommer ihåg = I remember
• jag kom ihåg = I remembered
• har du kommit ihåg? = have you remembered?

Literally it looks like come remember, but you should learn it as one unit meaning remember.

Because att introduces a subordinate clause, similar to that in English.

So:

• jag kom ihåg att ... = I remembered that ...

The full structure is:

• sedan kom jag ihåg
• att hon hade hjälpt mig förut

In English, that is often optional:

• I remembered that she had helped me before.
• I remembered she had helped me before.

In Swedish, att is very common in this structure.

Because hade hjälpt is the past perfect, and it shows that the helping happened before the remembering.

Timeline:

1. She helped me earlier.
2. Later, I remembered that fact.

So Swedish uses:

• hon hade hjälpt mig förut = she had helped me before

If you said hon hjälpte mig, that would just mean she helped me, without clearly showing that it happened before the moment of remembering.

Förut means before / earlier / previously.

So:

• hon hade hjälpt mig förut = she had helped me before

This is different from först:

• först = at first / first
• förut = before / earlier

Compare:

• Jag förstod inte först. = I didn’t understand at first.
• Jag har sett henne förut. = I have seen her before.

They look a little similar, but they mean different things.

Because mig is the object form of jag.

Compare:

• jag = I
• mig = me

So:

• hon hade hjälpt mig = she had helped me

Just like in English, you use the object form after the verb:

• she helped me
• hon hjälpte mig

Yes. Minnas means to remember, and mindes means remembered.

So you could say:

• ... men sedan mindes jag att hon hade hjälpt mig förut.

That is also correct. However, komma ihåg is extremely common in everyday Swedish and often feels more natural in speech.

Very roughly:

• komma ihåg = very common, conversational
• minnas = also common, sometimes slightly more formal or literary depending on context

Yes, it is very natural.

The sentence shows several important Swedish patterns:

• Jag kände inte igen ...
  main clause with negation after the finite verb

• ... men sedan kom jag ihåg ...
  verb-second word order after sedan

• ... att hon hade hjälpt mig förut
  subordinate clause with att and past perfect

So this is a very good example of ordinary, idiomatic Swedish.