Politiet kontrollerer alibiet.

In Norwegian, politi is usually treated as a singular neuter noun meaning the police as an institution or body.

• et politi = a police force / police body
• politiet = the police

So even though English uses the police and often treats it like a plural idea, Norwegian commonly uses politiet with a singular verb:

• Politiet kommer. = The police are coming.

If you want to talk about one police officer, you would normally use a different noun, such as en politibetjent.

Because both are neuter nouns, and in Norwegian the definite article is usually attached to the end of the noun.

For neuter nouns:

• indefinite: et alibi = an alibi
• definite: alibiet = the alibi

And similarly:

• indefinite: et politi (less common in everyday translation terms, but this is the form)
• definite: politiet = the police

So the -et ending here is basically the Norwegian way of saying the.

Because Norwegian often puts the at the end of the noun instead of using a separate word before it.

So:

• alibi = alibi

• alibiet = the alibi

• politi = police
• politiet = the police

This is one of the most important differences from English. In many simple sentences, Norwegian does not need a separate word like English the.

Kontrollerer is the present tense of å kontrollere.

• å kontrollere = to check / to inspect / to verify
• kontrollerer = checks / is checking / are checking

In Norwegian, the present tense often covers both the simple present and the present continuous from English, depending on context.

So Politiet kontrollerer alibiet can correspond to:

• The police check the alibi.
• The police are checking the alibi.

Not usually in this sentence. This is a very useful vocabulary point, because kontrollere can be a bit of a false friend for English speakers.

Here, kontrollerer means something like:

• check
• verify
• inspect

So Politiet kontrollerer alibiet means the police are checking or verifying the alibi, not controlling it in the English sense of commanding or dominating it.

The word order is the normal Norwegian main-clause pattern:

subject + verb + object

• Politiet = subject
• kontrollerer = verb
• alibiet = object

So:

• Politiet kontrollerer alibiet.
• literally: The police check the alibi.

This is very similar to standard English word order in a simple statement.

Norwegian verbs do not change according to the subject the way English verbs sometimes do.

In English:

• I check
• she checks
• they check

In Norwegian, the present tense form stays the same:

• jeg kontrollerer
• hun kontrollerer
• de kontrollerer
• politiet kontrollerer

So once you know the present form kontrollerer, you can use it with any subject.

It is a borrowed word, originally from Latin, but it is a normal Norwegian noun.

Its forms are:

• et alibi = an alibi
• alibiet = the alibi

Because it is a neuter noun, it takes et in the indefinite form and -et in the definite form.

A word-for-word translation might suggest that, but in natural English the better meaning is usually:

• The police are checking the alibi
• The police are verifying the alibi

So when learning this sentence, it is better to connect kontrollere here with check/verify rather than control.

The past tense of å kontrollere is kontrollerte.

So:

• Politiet kontrollerte alibiet. = The police checked the alibi.

This is useful because many Norwegian verbs have a single past-tense form that does not change with the subject either.