Ons het balbesit!

Yes. In this sentence, het means have.

• ons = we
• het = have

So Ons het balbesit! literally follows the pattern We have possession!

A useful thing to know is that Afrikaans commonly uses het as the present-tense form of to have with all subjects:

• Ek het = I have
• Jy het = you have
• Hy/Sy het = he/she has
• Ons het = we have
• Julle het = you all have
• Hulle het = they have

Unlike English, there is no separate has form.

Hê is the dictionary form / infinitive, meaning to have.
Het is the form you normally use in a full present-tense statement.

So:

• om te hê = to have
• ons het = we have

This is just something you need to learn as part of the verb.

Balbesit is a compound noun:

• bal = ball
• besit = possession

Together, balbesit means ball possession or possession of the ball.

This is very common in sports language, especially in games like soccer, rugby, or hockey.

Because Afrikaans, like Dutch and German, often forms compound nouns by joining words together.

So instead of writing bal besit, Afrikaans writes:

• balbesit

This is normal and expected. English often uses separate words where Afrikaans prefers one compound word.

Other common Afrikaans compounds work the same way.

Because balbesit here is being used as a general concept: possession.

In sports, Ons het balbesit means We have possession of the ball, not necessarily We have the possession in a word-for-word sense.

Afrikaans often leaves out an article in expressions like this when the meaning is already clear.

Yes, you could, but it is slightly different in nuance.

• Ons het die bal. = We have the ball.
• Ons het balbesit. = We have possession / We are in possession of the ball.

The first focuses on the ball itself.
The second sounds more like sports commentary or a game-status statement.

So balbesit is often the more natural choice in a sports context.

Yes. This is standard Afrikaans main-clause word order:

• Ons = subject
• het = verb
• balbesit = object/complement

So it follows the usual pattern:

Subject + verb + rest

That makes it very similar to English word order in a simple statement.

You would usually put the verb first:

• Het ons balbesit? = Do we have possession?

This is a very common Afrikaans pattern for yes/no questions:

• Ons het balbesit. = We have possession.
• Het ons balbesit? = Do we have possession?

So the main change is verb-first word order.

In this sentence, yes: ons means we.

More generally, ons can also appear in other roles in Afrikaans, including meanings related to us or our, depending on context. But here it is clearly the subject, so it simply means we.

A simple English-friendly approximation is:

ons het BAL-buh-sit

A bit more carefully:

• ons: sounds roughly like ons with a short rounded vowel
• het: like het
• balbesit: stress on the first part: BAL-be-sit

If you want a slightly more technical guide, it is approximately:

/ɔns hɛt ˈbɑl.bə.sət/

The most important thing for a learner is:

• keep het short
• stress bal in balbesit

It adds energy and emphasis.

Ons het balbesit! sounds like something you might hear:

• during live sports commentary
• from a coach or player
• in an excited game situation

Without the exclamation mark:

• Ons het balbesit.

it becomes a more neutral statement.

Yes, mostly.

Balbesit is especially natural in sports and game contexts where control of the ball matters. Outside that context, it would sound unusual unless you were speaking metaphorically.

So for a learner, it is best to think of balbesit as a sports word.