Jag blev utmattad men fortsatte klättra.

Blev is the past tense of bli.

In this sentence, bli means become or get, so blev utmattad means that the speaker became exhausted or got exhausted.

A few useful forms of bli:

• infinitive: bli
• present: blir
• past: blev
• supine: blivit

So the sentence is talking about something that happened in the past.

Because blev shows a change of state, while var just describes a state.

• Jag blev utmattad = I became exhausted / I got exhausted
• Jag var utmattad = I was exhausted

So blev tells us that the exhaustion happened during the action, not just that the speaker was already in that condition.

Utmattad is agreeing with the subject jag.

Here it works like a predicate adjective after blev. In Swedish, adjectives in this position usually agree with the subject in number and sometimes gender.

Examples:

• Jag blev utmattad = singular, common-gender form
• Vi blev utmattade = plural
• Det blev utmattat = neuter singular

With a person referred to as jag, utmattad is the normal form here.

Because Swedish often leaves out a repeated subject in coordinated clauses when the subject is clearly the same.

So:

• Jag blev utmattad men fortsatte klättra

is a shorter version of:

• Jag blev utmattad men jag fortsatte klättra

Both are understandable, and the shorter version is very natural.

English does something similar sometimes:

• I got exhausted but kept climbing

You do not have to repeat I if the meaning is already clear.

After fortsätta, Swedish can often use either:

• fortsätta klättra
• fortsätta att klättra

Both are correct.

So these are both natural:

• Jag fortsatte klättra
• Jag fortsatte att klättra

The version without att is very common and often feels slightly more direct or compact. There is usually no important difference in meaning.

Klättra is the infinitive.

It is not marked for tense here, because the tense is already carried by fortsatte.

So:

• fortsatte = past tense, continued
• klättra = infinitive, climb

This is similar to English:

• continued to climb

In Swedish, the second verb often stays in the infinitive after another verb.

Yes. The whole sentence refers to the past.

That is because the finite verbs are:

• blev
• fortsatte

Both are past tense.

The verb klättra stays in the infinitive because it depends on fortsatte. So even though klättra itself is not a past-tense form, the action is still understood as past.

A good English comparison is:

• I continued to climb

Here to climb is not a past-tense form either, but the whole idea is still in the past because of continued.

Yes, absolutely.

That version is more explicit because it:

• repeats jag
• includes att

So you have at least these natural versions:

• Jag blev utmattad men fortsatte klättra
• Jag blev utmattad men fortsatte att klättra
• Jag blev utmattad men jag fortsatte klättra
• Jag blev utmattad men jag fortsatte att klättra

They all mean essentially the same thing. The original version is just more compact.

Yes.

• trött = tired
• utmattad = exhausted, worn out, drained

So utmattad is much stronger. It suggests very heavy fatigue, not just ordinary tiredness.

That makes the contrast with men fortsatte klättra stronger too: the speaker was not just tired, but really exhausted, and still kept climbing.