Learn Swedish: Diplomaten leder statens delegation. - The diplomat leads the state's delegation.

In Swedish, when you use a possessive word ending in -s (like statens, meaning "the state's"), the noun that follows must always be in its indefinite form. Even though we are talking about a specific delegation, we use the indefinite delegation rather than the definite delegationen.

Leder looks like the English word "leader". Is it a verb or a noun here?

Here, leder is a verb in the present tense, meaning "leads". Its infinitive form is leda (to lead). If you want to use the noun "leader" in Swedish, the word is ledare.

How exactly is the word statens built?

It starts with the root noun en stat (a state). First, you make it definite by adding -en to get staten (the state). Then, you add the possessive -s to the very end to get statens (the state's).

Is there a rule to help remember the gender of words like delegation?

Yes! Almost all Swedish nouns that end in the suffix -tion are en-words. Therefore, it is en delegation, which is helpful to know if you ever need to attach adjectives to it.