Learn Swedish: I helgen var vädret fint. - This weekend the weather was nice.

They look and sound exactly the same, but they are completely different words. Here, var is the simple past tense of the verb vara (to be), meaning 'was' or 'were'. Because Swedish verbs do not change depending on who is doing the action, var works for I was, you were, it was, and they were.

Why does the verb var come before the subject vädret?

This happens because of the Swedish V2 rule. The verb must always be the second block of information in a standard sentence. Since the time phrase I helgen (this weekend) takes up the first position, the verb var has to come next. This pushes the subject vädret (the weather) to the third spot.

How do we know I helgen means 'this past weekend' and not 'this upcoming weekend'?

I helgen simply means 'this weekend' or 'the weekend'. You have to look at the rest of the sentence to know if it is in the past or the future. Because this sentence uses the past tense verb var (was), we automatically know it refers to the weekend that just passed.

Why does the adjective fint (nice) have a 't' at the end?