"Han har till uppgift att ta hand om sjuka barn."
Translation:It is his task to take care of sick children.
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What about: He has a task to take care of sick children. Anything wrong with this?
That would have been en uppgift.
(I know my reply is extremely late, but I'm trying to cover unanswered top-level comments for the benefit of future learners.)
Added that. It's not exactly the most idiomatic translation, but it's certainly not wrong.
Doesn't "till" usually mean an additional thing? Like saying en till (one more). Or is till uppgift is one word?
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If you would have to have "en uppgift" to be "a task," why is "the task" accepted without it being "uppgiften"? Idiomatically, "he has a task to take care..." is perfectly reasonable, and I say that as a guy who works on medical records software where doctors and nurses are assigned tasks to take care of sick children.
I'm open to changing the accepted translations if it turns out I'm wrong, of course. I'll try to explain how I see the terms, given the Swedish, and I'll be very interested to see what you think about them.
The Swedish ha till uppgift means that it's somebody's responsibility to do something, not once but continuously. For instance, taking out the trash at home or ordering more coffee for the office might be my tasks. If I have en uppgift, it's much more likely to be something I'm required to do once, but not repeatedly.
I've always understood the possessive in English to correspond to the continuous interpretation in Swedish, as in "it's his task". Hence why I also allowed "the task", because it sounds like something that's carried out repeatedly. And, correspondingly, to me having "a task" sounds like something that's done once.
Am I way off here? :)
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Devalanteriel, your distinction between "he needs to do this today" and "he's the guy who has this responsibility all the time" is a game changer in my understanding of this.
Using "the" instead of "a" in that sentence does give a different implication, as you suggest, that "the" task is his now and his most of the time, where "a" task is probably more of a one-time thing.
With this distinction, I'm happy to not have the accepted translations updated.
Thanks for all that you do for us!
So....what is the TILL doing here? Is this part of a set phrase? Also, is TA HAND OM part of a set phrase? If so, a dictionary hint might be helpful.
I'm to tired to think of a good explanation for your first question. However, I can tell you that "att ta hand om" is the same as "to take care of".
Even after reading the comments above I still don't understand why it's "till uppgift". Could somebody please explain?
till sometimes has this meaning of as or in the function of. So literally it's 'He has as a task to …'
It's similar to when we say äta något till middag = 'eat something for dinner' – the thing sort of fulfills a role, if you understand what I mean.
That's perfectly fine, though I tried it too and it's not accepted. Do report it next time. :)
I keep getting "It is his assignment to take care of sick children" marked wrong, because the program thinks that "assignment" should be spelled "assigment".
Thank you. I have fixed that now, though please note that there appears to be a delay of up to a few days for some corrected answers to become accepted throughout.
Is this "He's the task of taking care of sick children." good English? I sounds wrong to me, but I'm not a native speaker.
That wasn't what the English translation said. It said "It is HIS task to...." which I can't really imagine saying, but it's not incorrect.
You can contract has when it's an auxiliary, like in He's got the task to…, but not when it's a real verb, like in He has the task. Unfortunately the Duo machinery doesn't really grok the rules for this, so it sometimes generates contractions where it shouldn't (and in other cases, doesn't allow them where it ought to).
It might not be my first choice of translation, but it's certainly not wrong. Please report it if you come across it again. :)
They can be at times, but not per definition. You may still be responsible for a task you don't actually do yourself, for instance.
That's also accepted. They mean the same thing, but det är hans uppgift may be used to emphasise that it's HIS task and nobody else's.
