Kongen bor i huset.

In Danish, the definite article is usually attached to the end of the noun instead of standing in front of it.

• en konge = a king
• kongen = the king

So the ending -en is doing the job that the does in English.

This is very common in Danish:

• en bil → bilen = the car
• en mand → manden = the man

For the same reason: Danish normally adds the definite article to the end of the noun.

• et hus = a house
• huset = the house

You do not usually say et huset. That would be like saying a the house.

Here, hus is a neuter noun, so its definite ending is -et:

• et hus → huset

Compare that with common-gender nouns, which usually take -en:

• en konge → kongen

It depends on the gender of the noun.

Danish has two grammatical genders:

• common gender: usually takes en in the indefinite form and -en in the definite form
• neuter gender: usually takes et in the indefinite form and -et in the definite form

In this sentence:

• konge is a common-gender noun: en konge → kongen
• hus is a neuter noun: et hus → huset

So the endings are not random; they match the noun’s gender.

Bor is the present tense of at bo, which means to live or to reside somewhere.

So:

• at bo = to live
• bor = live / lives / am living / is living / are living, depending on context

In Danish, the present tense form is the same for all subjects:

• jeg bor = I live
• du bor = you live
• han bor = he lives
• kongen bor = the king lives

Unlike English, Danish verbs do not change for different persons.

It can often cover both ideas, depending on context.

Kongen bor i huset can mean:

• The king lives in the house
• The king is living in the house

Danish present tense is often broader than English present tense. English sometimes forces you to choose between lives and is living, but Danish bor can work for either, depending on the situation.

If there is no extra context, English learners usually translate it as The king lives in the house.

I usually means in.

So:

• i huset = in the house

It is a very common preposition in Danish:

• i byen = in the city
• i skolen = in the school
• i Danmark = in Denmark

So in this sentence, i simply shows location.

This is the normal basic word order in a main clause:

subject + verb + other information

So here:

• Kongen = subject
• bor = verb
• i huset = place

That gives:

• Kongen bor i huset

This is very similar to standard English word order:

• The king lives in the house

Yes, but then the emphasis changes, and Danish follows special word-order rules.

For example:

• I huset bor kongen.

This is still grammatical and means something like In the house lives the king or It is in the house that the king lives.

Notice that when something other than the subject comes first, the verb still stays in the second position:

• I huset = first element
• bor = second element
• kongen = after the verb

This is an important Danish rule called V2 word order.

In Danish, nouns are not capitalized just because they are nouns or important titles.

Kongen is capitalized here only because it is the first word of the sentence.

So:

• Kongen bor i huset.
• but in the middle of a sentence: Jeg ser kongen.

This is like English for many common nouns, but unlike German, where all nouns are capitalized.

Not in the way an English speaker might expect.

In kongen, the ng is pronounced like the ng sound in sing. The g is not pronounced as a separate hard g sound like in go.

So it sounds roughly like:

• kong-en with an ng sound in the middle

Also, the final -en is a weak ending.

A simple learner-friendly approximation is:

• KONG-en, with the middle sounding like sing

The exact Danish pronunciation is more subtle, but the key point is: do not pronounce it like kon-gen with a strong separate g.

A learner-friendly approximation is something like:

• HOO-set

But be careful:

• the u in Danish is not exactly like English oo
• the ending -et is usually light and unstressed

The important thing for beginners is to recognize that:

• hus = the base noun
• -et = the definite ending

So even if your pronunciation is not perfect yet, try to keep the word in two parts:

• hus-et

Normally, no. In this sentence, i huset is the natural choice because it means in the house.

• i huset = inside the house / in the house

Using på usually means on, on top of, or sometimes at with certain places and expressions, but not normally inside a house.

So:

• Kongen bor i huset = correct for The king lives in the house

Very often, yes, but not always.

In simple cases like this sentence, the definite article is attached to the noun:

• kongen
• huset

But if there is an adjective before the noun, Danish usually uses a separate definite word as well:

• kongen = the king
• den gamle konge = the old king
• huset = the house
• det store hus = the big house

So the sentence is simple because there are no adjectives. That is why the attached endings alone are enough.

Mostly, at bo is used for people and means to live / reside somewhere.

Examples:

• Jeg bor i Aarhus. = I live in Aarhus.
• De bor i et hus. = They live in a house.

For animals, Danish may also use bo in some contexts, but very often other verbs are possible depending on the meaning. For places of residence, though, bo is the standard verb you should learn first.

So in Kongen bor i huset, it clearly means the king resides there.