Han har et alibi.

Because alibi is a neuter noun in Norwegian, so its indefinite singular article is et.

Norwegian indefinite articles depend on grammatical gender, not on sound:

• en for many masculine nouns
• ei for many feminine nouns
• et for neuter nouns

So even though alibi starts with a vowel, Norwegian still uses et: et alibi.

This is different from English, where a/an depends on pronunciation.

It means both.

English uses a before consonant sounds and an before vowel sounds, but Norwegian does not make that distinction. In Norwegian, et is simply the indefinite article for a neuter noun.

So:

• et alibi = an alibi
• et hus = a house

The form et stays the same.

Har is the present tense of the verb å ha, which means to have.

So:

• å ha = to have
• har = have / has
• hadde = had

In this sentence, Han har et alibi uses the normal present-tense form meaning He has an alibi.

Because han is the subject form of the pronoun.

In this sentence, he is the one doing the verb has, so Norwegian uses han.

Compare:

• Han har et alibi. = He has an alibi.
• Jeg kjenner ham. = I know him.

So:

• han = he
• ham = him

In modern spoken Norwegian, some people use han where older written grammar would use ham, but in standard written Bokmål, han is the correct subject form here.

No, this is the most basic Norwegian main-clause word order:

Subject + verb + object

• Han = subject
• har = verb
• et alibi = object

So the sentence structure is very close to English:

• He has an alibi.
• Han har et alibi.

This is a good example of straightforward Norwegian word order.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation guide would be:

han har et ah-lee-BEE

A bit more closely:

• Han: roughly hahn
• har: roughly hahr
• et: often very short, almost like et or e in fast speech
• alibi: ah-lee-BEE

The stress in alibi is on the last syllable: aliBI.

In natural speech, et is often weakly pronounced, so the sentence may sound more connected and flowing than the spelling suggests.

It is used as a normal Norwegian word, but it is an international loanword rather than an originally Scandinavian word.

The spelling is the same as in English: alibi.

That makes it easy to recognize, but remember that in Norwegian it still behaves like a normal noun with Norwegian grammar:

• et alibi
• alibiet = the alibi

Usually, no.

If you mean He has an alibi, the normal form is Han har et alibi. The article is needed because you are talking about one unspecified alibi.

Without the article, Han har alibi sounds incomplete or unnatural in standard usage.

So for learners, the safe choice is:

• Han har et alibi.

The definite singular is alibiet, meaning the alibi.

So:

• et alibi = an alibi
• alibiet = the alibi

Example:

• Han har et alibi. = He has an alibi.
• Alibiet hans er sterkt. = His alibi is strong.

This is a useful pattern to notice with neuter nouns:

• et hus → huset
• et alibi → alibiet

Yes, Han har et alibi is standard Bokmål.

It is also perfectly understandable to Norwegian speakers generally. For a beginner, this is a normal and useful Bokmål sentence to learn:

• Han = he
• har = has
• et alibi = an alibi

So if you are learning standard written Norwegian, this sentence is completely natural.