"Jeg kan ikke finne søppelet."

Translation: I cannot find the trash.

[DumblyClever]

I need it really badly! It's a matter of life and death!

[talideon]

Somebody put it in the Mr. Fusion, I'm afraid!

[ryannjh]

Does this mean a bag of rubbish or a trash can?

[dghvgfgbtgdsfg]

So in Norwegian knowing is literally the power to do something.

[Amin663889]

It is very intetesting that this word accepts all possible genders in Norwegian! Feminine, masculine, and of course, neuter!

[TARDISToni]

I was going to ask about this. Since apparently, all three genders are acceptable, how do we know which one to use? My personal inclination would be to want to use neuter (and in fact that's what we see here), but since masculine and feminine generally take the same form (-en) in Bøkmal Norsk, I could, purely statistically speaking, be wrong up to 66.7% of the time. ;-)

Seriously though: if all three are acceptable, and unless there are different meanings for the different gendered forms (as with ting - which, if it is the case, wasn't made clear in the Tips and Notes), then I suppose theoretically one would almost never be wrong. I'm just trying to come up with an example where only masculine (or feminine) would be acceptable. For example, I could say "Den mannen er søppel" ('that man is trash'), so we'd expect the masculine form, but søppel doesn't take an article in that sentence - definite or indefinite - so it doesn't really matter.

For that matter, is søppel even countable? Can it take an indefinite article, or will we never see that?

Can someone please help me come up with an example in which either the masculine or feminine form of søppelen is not only acceptable, but required? Tusen takk!

[Ani_Jane]

Why is 'I can't find the bin' incorrect? Annoying that sometimes Duolingo only accepts American English translations.

[Xneb]

I assumed this was talking about the trash/rubbish that was outside of the bin (in a bag or some that had been lying on the floor). "Rubbish" was accepted when I used it.

[Ani_Jane]

Looking at it again I think you're right Xneb. I guess søppel' is just referring to the rubbish, it would be 'søppelbøtte' if they meant bin. My mistake.

[jar30pma23]

Si mannen, etter kona skjenner ham

[fveldig]

sier mannen, etter at kona har kjeftet på ham*

[ormuraspotta]

Here I am!

[jmb1948]

I wrote refuse which is trash

[GAPanda]

said the janitor at a modern art museum

[Stellar114016]

That's interesting how the trash is on Norwegian because in Russia we have the word сопля (soplya) which means snot)))

[kashhhhhhhhhh]

i was trying to figure out how to say cat litter box in norwegian, and the best i came up with was søppelboks. does anyone know if that's right?

[dennorske]

Does Søppel mean the trashcan or the trash inside? Or both?

[Adrian442793]

Literally: the trash itself. So, it's possible to say, "såppelkasse" (and there are other words too) for the trashcan.

[Martin209322]

This part of the lesson is malfunctioning. Even with the correct answer (given by Duolingo) I get the message 'wrong answer'. So I cannot finish this lesson. Please repair!