[Grammar] Noun+noun/gerund or +infinitive?

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Jack8rkin

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Feb 11, 2010
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Russian
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Russian Federation
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Russian Federation
Hello, everybody:
I've been translating a text from Russian and
encountered an issue with the form to be used in the following example:
"the purpose of work is to optimize characteristics of...", or
"the purpose of work is optimization/optimizing (of)characteristics of..."
So, the question is what is best to chose in this situation: an infinitive or a noun/gerund?
There are lots of such structures in the texts I translate and Russians prefer to use nouns in translations. I think it's wrong. So, what do you say?
 

bhaisahab

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Apr 12, 2008
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Hello, everybody:
I've been translating a text from Russian and
encountered an issue with the form to be used in the following example:
"the purpose of work is to optimize characteristics of...", or
"the purpose of work is optimization/optimizing (of)characteristics of..."
So, the question is what is best to chose in this situation: an infinitive or a noun/gerund?
There are lots of such structures in the texts I translate and Russians prefer to use nouns in translations. I think it's wrong. So, what do you say?
Welcome to the forums.
If you are talking about a specific job of work, you need the definite article, "the purpose of the work is to optimize".
 

Jack8rkin

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Russian Federation
Current Location
Russian Federation
Thank you for the advice. I'll add the article.
Why can't I use gerund here? Any scientific background for that? Or it's just uncommon?
 
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