Learn Swedish: Kungen dog igår. - The king died yesterday.

The verb dö (to die) belongs to Group 4, which contains strong and irregular verbs. Instead of adding a standard past tense ending like -de or -te, these verbs change their vowel. So, the infinitive dö becomes dog in the simple past.

Is kungen the base word for king?

No, kung is the base word for a king. Because Swedish attaches the definite article (the word for "the") to the end of the noun, we add the suffix -en to make it kungen (the king).

If I want to emphasize that it happened yesterday, can I put igår at the start of the sentence?

Yes, but you have to remember the V2 rule! In Swedish, the verb must be the second piece of information. If you move igår to the front, the verb dog has to swap places with the subject kungen. The sentence becomes: Igår dog kungen.

Is it also correct to spell igår as two words?

Yes, you will often see it written as two separate words: i går. Both igår and i går are completely correct and interchangeable.