"A administração toma decisões importantes."

Translation: The administration makes important decisions.

[r_i_l_e_y]

I answered "The administration makes important decisions" and it was marked correct. But how does "toma" translate to "makes"?

[Paulenrique]

It could be "fazer" too, as well as you could use "take" in the English sentence and then translates it as tomar

[delvi]

"Take" does not make the same sense in English as "make" does. I think the sentence should only be "make," and then one should use "fazer."

[delvi]

I would appreciate an experts, or at least a native speaker, to answer this so I can understand why the word "toma" is used. It doesn't make sense to my English brain. :)

[Davu]

I don't think the Portuguese is the problem. This US dictionary entry (7c): http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/take implies that using "take" rather than "make" may be preferred when the decision is final. In British English "take a decision" is common: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/decision

[intcreator]

"Toma decisões" is probably a sensible phrase in Portuguese that translates (albeit not obviously very literally) to "make decisions" in English. In the United States, it is very uncommon to hear the phrase "take decisions" (in fact I've never heard it in my life) but I think we have sufficient authority in the Portuguese language present to assume that the phrase here is translated correctly.

[BenHueb]

Are you sure about that? How about "I do not take decisions lightly"? Granted, it's a very specific usage.

[intcreator]

I would argue that in that case "take" is being used as a synonym for "consider" or "think about" in a similar sense to a phrase like "did she take the news well?" It seems to me weird to say "I do not make decisions lightly."

[BenHueb]

You are completely right! I was only commenting on you saying you had never heard the phrase "take decisions" in American English.

[Steven.Garschke]

group nouns can be considered as singular or plural in British English so you can say the administration "take" or "takes"

[Steven.Garschke]

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/agreement-over-collective-nouns/