Breakdown of Vi har to søppelbøtter: én for mat og én for resirkulering.
Questions & Answers about Vi har to søppelbøtter: én for mat og én for resirkulering.
In Norwegian, en normally means a / an (the indefinite article) or one in a neutral, unstressed way.
Adding the accent, én, is usually done to emphasize the number one, especially to distinguish it from the article.
- Vi har en søppelbøtte. – We have a trash can. (Could mean one trash can, but it’s not emphasized.)
- Vi har én søppelbøtte. – We have one trash can (and not two, three, etc.).
In your sentence:
- én for mat og én for resirkulering highlights that there is one bin for food and one for recycling.
In everyday writing, the accent isn’t always used, but it’s common when you want to be extra clear or contrast numbers.
The colon introduces an explanation or a list of what is meant by to søppelbøtter (two trash cans).
So:
- Vi har to søppelbøtter: én for mat og én for resirkulering.
= We have two trash cans: one for food and one for recycling.
This is similar to English use of the colon. You could also write it with a comma, but the colon makes the structure clearer and slightly more formal or precise.
Søppelbøtter is a compound noun:
- søppel = trash / garbage
- bøtte = bucket
Put together: søppelbøtte = trash can / garbage bin / waste bucket.
Søppelbøtter is the indefinite plural form: trash cans.
Norwegian regularly writes compounds as one word, unlike English:
- søppelbøtte (not søppel bøtte) – literally “trash-bucket”
- skrivebord – desk (literally “write-table”)
- håndkle – towel (literally “hand-cloth”)
Writing søppel bøtter as two separate words would be incorrect.
Bokmål allows bøtte to be masculine (en) or feminine (ei). That gives two parallel systems:
Masculine pattern (very common):
- en søppelbøtte – a trash can
- søppelbøtten – the trash can
- søppelbøtter – trash cans
- søppelbøttene – the trash cans
Feminine pattern (also correct):
- ei søppelbøtte – a trash can
- søppelbøtta – the trash can
- søppelbøtter – trash cans
- søppelbøttene – the trash cans
The plural forms are the same in both patterns. In your sentence, søppelbøtter is indefinite plural: two trash cans.
Approximate pronunciation (standard Eastern Norwegian):
- IPA: [ˈsøpːəlˌbœtːər]
Broken down:
- sø – like “suh” but with rounded lips; similar to French “se” in “seul”.
- pp – a long p sound (double consonants indicate length in Norwegian).
- el – clear “el”.
- bø – similar vowel to the first syllable: rounded, somewhere between “uh” and “eu” in French “peur”.
- tt – long t sound.
- er – more like “ehr” (not like English “er” in “water”).
Stress: SØP-pel-bøt-ter – main stress on the first syllable, secondary on bøt.
Resirkulering is a noun meaning recycling (the process or system of recycling).
It is closely related to:
- å resirkulere – to recycle (verb).
Examples:
Vi har én for mat og én for resirkulering.
We have one for food and one for recycling.Vi resirkulerer plast og papir.
We recycle plastic and paper.
So you can think:
resirkulering ≈ recycling (noun)
å resirkulere ≈ to recycle (verb)
In én for mat og én for resirkulering, the preposition for expresses purpose or function:
- én for mat – one (bin) for food
- én for resirkulering – one (bin) for recycling
You could say én til mat / én til resirkulering, and that’s also understandable and not wrong. But:
- for often sounds more natural when you’re describing what something is used for in a general, functional way.
- til can feel a bit more like “intended for” or “assigned to”, and appears often in more set phrases or when you’re giving something to someone (til deg = to you).
In this context, for is the most typical choice.
Mat literally just means food.
In practice, when Norwegians say søppel / søppelpose / søppelbøtte for mat, they almost always mean food waste, especially in sorting systems.
More explicit alternatives:
- én for matavfall – one for food waste
- én for organisk avfall – one for organic waste
But everyday speech often shortens this to just mat, because the context (trash sorting) makes the meaning clear. So én for mat is perfectly natural.
You could, but it would change the meaning.
én for mat og én for resirkulering
= two bins, one for food and one for recycling.én for mat og resirkulering
= one bin that is for both food and recycling together.
So repeating én makes it clear that you have two separate bins, each with its own purpose.
Norwegian to has two completely different uses:
to as a number = two
- Vi har to søppelbøtter. – We have two trash cans.
to as a preposition = to / toward (this one is less common and often sounds a bit formal or old-fashioned; til is much more common as the preposition meaning “to”).
- Example: Han gikk to fjells. – He went to the mountains. (fairly literary)
In your sentence, to is only the number two.
The usual preposition “to” in Norwegian is til, not to.
Both are possible, but they focus slightly different things:
Vi har to søppelbøtter – We have two trash cans.
Focus: possession; the fact that we own or are responsible for them.Det er to søppelbøtter her – There are two trash cans here.
Focus: existence/location; the fact that two bins are present.
In the original sentence, the point is what we have (our system), so Vi har is the natural choice.
Yes, several synonyms exist, often with slightly different nuances or regional preferences:
- søppelbøtte – very common, often a smaller indoor bin.
- søppelkasse – trash can / garbage container (can sound a bit bigger).
- avfallsdunk / søppeldunk – large outdoor bin or wheelie bin.
- papirkurv – wastepaper basket (specifically for paper).
In daily conversation, søppelbøtte is a very safe and common choice for trash can.