Learn Swedish: Personen framför mig hade ett paraply. - The person in front of me had an umbrella.

Both can translate to "before" or "in front of" in English, but they have different uses. Framför is used for physical, spatial position (literally standing physically in front of you). Före is generally used for time or sequence. If you wanted to emphasize that someone was ahead of you in a queue, you could use före, but framför specifically describes their physical placement right in front of you.

Why doesn't the verb hade come right after Personen to follow the V2 (verb-second) rule?

The Swedish V2 rule means the verb must be the second block of information in a main clause, not necessarily the second word. Here, the entire phrase Personen framför mig acts as a single block (the subject). Because the whole phrase sits in the first position, hade correctly takes the second position.

How does the word paraply change in the definite ("the umbrella") and plural ("umbrellas") forms?

Paraply is an ett word that ends in a stressed vowel, which means it has a slightly irregular pattern. The definite singular is paraplyet. To make it plural, you add -er, making it paraplyer.