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What is a natural way to say the following?

  1. It's better to give priority to this task.

  2. I need to set priorities.

  3. I need to get my priorities straight.

I'm finding expressions like: (приоритизировать, уделять первоочередное внимание, определить приоритеты), but I'm unable to know whether some are too formal, too literary or unnatural.

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  • Can't catch what "get" means in the third sentence - do priorities need to be requested in a correct order from a manager, or "I" need to clear up priority order by myself
    – Arhadthedev
    Mar 25, 2019 at 7:10
  • @Arhad to get straight is a stable collocation
    – Баян Купи-ка
    Mar 25, 2019 at 7:43
  • @Arhad to get (one's) priorities straight
    – Nart Abaza
    Mar 25, 2019 at 9:02
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    the notion itself isn't a mundane one therefore it tends to always sound formal, the unnatural one is приоритЕзировать, despite its being attested in the Wiktionary, it also doesn't seem to have a standard spelling приоритИ- or приоритЕ-, the rest are OK
    – Баян Купи-ка
    Mar 25, 2019 at 14:36
  • "взяться" and "браться" / "to take on, to engage" - "Мне нужно сначала взяться за эту задачу" / "I need to take on this task first"
    – Alexander
    Mar 25, 2019 at 21:43

3 Answers 3

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  1. Лучше поставить на первое место эту задачу. (informal) OR Лучше дать приоритет этой задаче. (formal)

  2. Мне нужно расставить приоритеты.

  3. Мне нужно разобраться/определиться с приоритетами.

The word приоритет is quite formal so most sentences containing it will probably sound formal.

The expressions "быть в приоритете", "поставить в приоритет" seem to be quite new and are less formal than the word itself. Example:

  • У нас сейчас банька в приоритете.
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    сделать задачу is not Russian, either сделать задание (or better выполнить) or решить задачу (but this is from another opera altogether) or сделать эту задачу первоочередной that is to give it a priority
    – Баян Купи-ка
    Mar 25, 2019 at 11:57
  • @БаянКупи-ка, согласен. Влияние буржуазного языка. Updated my answer.
    – Sergey Slepov
    Mar 25, 2019 at 13:05
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  • It's better to give priority to this task.

    1. Сто́ит поставить эту задачу в приоритет.
    2. Надо выполнить эту задачу в первую очередь.

  • I need to set priorities. — я должен расставить приоритеты.

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"приоритизировать" is an OK word, it's a bit long, but I definitely heard it used in real life conversations. For more informal statements you can use:

It's better to give priority to this task.

Первым делом надо [сделать/закочить/выполнить] [задачу]


For the other two examples you can use "(правильно) расставить приоритеты" if you want to be more formal/literal, but if it's expression along the line of "Hey man, you need to get your priorities straight" you night use something like:

не забывай что тут главное

But like a lot of translation it might depends on context

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