"C'est assez grave pour avoir besoin de soins."
Translation:It is serious enough to need care.
43 Comments
I think "C'est assez grave" by itself would indeed mean "It's quite serious", but with the following clause beginning with "pour", then it becomes "serious enough for (or to)..."
Exactly right. The "pour" is the contextual clue that tells you which meaning of "assez" is the appropriate one to use in this case.
Granted that "pour" gives us the necessary clue and kills off all ambiguity, is "plutôt" the word we would use to say that it's quite serious to need treatment?
Yes, that would work. Conversely, to be even clearer that we mean "serious enough to", we could say "suffisamment grave pour", and do away with that annoyingly ambiguous "assez" entirely.
"soin" means care, but "soins" means both care and treatment, and is used more in a medical context. A better English translation, and one which makes more sense, is "it is serious enough to need treatment" (which Duolingo accepts as a correct answer).
But both forms sound identical, don't they? I think the question is"C'est assez grave pour avoir besoin de soin." a wrong transcript for the spoken sentence?
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"soin" and "soins" sound the same and in this sentence you could have both. I lost a heart for writing "soin" instead of "soins", I'll report this.
i went with "it's serious enough to demand treatment", which sounds fine by me, but DL didn't like it :/
I went for 'It's serious enough to require treatment' and it got accepted.
Great! That's because you chose wisely!! Seriously, for those wondering about "le soin / les soins", there is a good explanation of the medical treatment and care giving aspect found here: http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/french-english/soin/72406
That is a great reply . I went very litteral with " It's grave enough to have need of some care " and got bounced , even though it seems technically correct to me . Jayson
As riclage says, why is the plural required? From the dictation it sounds the same with or without the s. How does one know when it should be soin or soins? Does soins mean treatment and soin mean care?
I have been checking this out in two different older dictionaries and I think you may be right, that soin and soins are used somewhat differently. Most of the examples of usage used soins.
Seems to me that if they put "soins" in the French, they should accept "medical care" in the English translation. I understand "soin" to mean "care" in a general sense, and "soins" to refer to medical attention.
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I agree with ericdavis. There is no context to conclude that the care needed is medical. The subject of the sentence could be referring to a business condition or a science experiment.
the 'pour' sounds a bit unnatural to me, can you leave it out or replace it with 'de'?
I have found that translations where the English "to" could be replaced with "in order to" tend to use "pour" in French.
EDIT: Though to be fair, "in order to" would sound a little odd in this one. :-)
Are you saying that you are a native French speaker and "pour" sounds unnatural to you? If you're not a native French speaker, what is the basis for it sounding unnatural?
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The trouble with these phrases is that we don't have context. I read it as a general term rather than illness, and I put ' it is serious enough to cause concern' because it seemed a more natural phrase that an English speaker would use .. and lost a heart for trying to be realistic.
"Avoir besoin" doesn't actually mean "merit". Probably best to stick to the obvious translation when you can.
Is there a difference (i.e. in context) if I use devoir instead of 'avoir besoin de?' << C'est assez grave pour devoir des soins. >>
I think a more natural sounding English translation would be: "it's serious enough to need attention." I didn't risk it though.
" to need care" means "to warrant care" The latter is more appropriate because of " assez grave"
