Learn Swedish: När du läser receptet, förstår du ofta allt. - When you read the recipe, you often understand everything.

This is the V2 rule in action! The first part of the sentence, När du läser receptet, is a subordinate clause acting as one big block in position one. Because the verb must come second in a Swedish main clause, the verb förstår comes right after the comma, pushing the subject du into position three.

How do I know that När du läser receptet counts as the first position?

In Swedish, a whole clause can act as a single unit of meaning. Because it starts with the conjunction När (when), this entire phrase sets the time for the main action. When you put a time, place, or condition phrase at the start of a sentence, it acts as a single block and takes up spot number one.

Why does the adverb ofta come after du here?

In a main clause, sentence adverbs like ofta (often) generally go after the verb. When the sentence is inverted like this one, with the verb before the subject, the adverb slides in right after the subject. So the order becomes Verb-Subject-Adverb (förstår du ofta).

Just to review, why is it receptet instead of recept?

Receptet is the definite form, meaning the recipe. Because recept is an ett-word (a noun that uses ett instead of en), we add -et to the end to make it definite.