In Swedish, choosing between past tenses depends on whether an action is tied to a specific point in time or viewed as general experience. When a past event happened at a definite, finished time, you use the preterite. When the time is open or has relevance right now, you use the present perfect.

The preterite is used whenever an action took place at a specific, named time in the past. Time markers like 'i går', meaning yesterday, and 'förra veckan', meaning last week, anchor the action. For example, 'I går drack jag kaffe' means 'Yesterday I drank coffee', and 'Förra veckan köpte vi en bil' means 'Last week we bought a car'.

Other time markers also fix an action to a specific past moment. 'I morse' means this morning, and 'i går kväll' means yesterday evening. For example, 'Han ringde i morse' means 'He phoned this morning', and 'Vad gjorde du i går kväll?' means 'What did you do yesterday evening?'.