Breakdown of Patienten får inte svälja något innan operationen börjar.
inte
not
börja
to start
få
to be allowed to, may
innan
before
Questions & Answers about Patienten får inte svälja något innan operationen börjar.
Could I use före instead of innan in this sentence?
Prescriptively, no. The traditional rule is that före is a preposition used before a noun phrase (like före operationen), while innan is a conjunction used before a full clause with a subject and a verb. Because this sentence continues with the full clause operationen börjar, innan is the formally correct choice. Note that in casual everyday speech, many native speakers tend to use innan for both functions.
Why does får inte translate to "must not" here?
As an auxiliary verb, får means "to be allowed to" or "may". When you negate it to form får inte, it means someone is expressly not allowed to do something. In English, this strong prohibition is almost always translated as "must not".
Is there a difference between using något and någonting in this sentence?
No, they mean exactly the same thing here ("anything") and are completely interchangeable. The word något is slightly shorter and very common in both writing and speech, while någonting might add a tiny bit more emphasis to the fact that the patient cannot swallow a single thing.
The surgery hasn't happened yet, so why is börjar in the present tense?