1 (job) tarea (f) I had to keep the children amused, which was no easy task tenía que entretener a los niños, lo cual no era tarea fácil
our first task is to set up a committee Walker had \the unenviable task of breaking the bad news\ to Hill Richard had the difficult task of phoning our family and friends to tell them what had happened the endless task of classifying and ordering the samples I can't go out until I've done a few tasks at home the teacher set the pupils several tasks for their homework
to give or set sb the task of doing sth pedir a algn que haga algo
I was given the task of sharpening the pencils Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch has been given the task of co-ordinating all investigations into the campaign
to take sb to task (for sth) reprender or regañar a algn (por algo); llamar a algn a capítulo (por algo) (formal) we've always been taken to task for appearing not to have any opinions many Japanese newspapers took the government to task for not offering a formal apology
2 (function, stated aim) cometido (m) it was the task of the army to maintain order mantener el orden era el cometido del ejército
