Feedback on Warm-Up 1: 'to' is a tricky word

Which of these is right?

1. I am used to take care of dogs.

2. I am used to taking care of dogs.

(Answer: 2).

The word 'to' has two functions in English: it's part of an infinitive (to go, to see, etc) and it's also a preposition (to town, to my friend's house). The first one is 'att' in Swedish, and the second is either 'till' or 'mot'.

In (2) above, the 'to' is in the second category … so you need something that acts like a noun (substantiv) after it, not something that acts like a verb. The tricky thing about English verbs is that they have a built-in 'noun form', which ends in -ing. So when the 'to' is a preposition, as in the phrase "I am looking forward to", what comes next is either an ordinary noun phrase (e.g. a nice cup of coffee) or an -ing form.

BTW, Swedish verbs have 'noun forms' too - they end in '-ande' - it's just that that form isn't used for anything else (like "I'm taking care of his dogs this week"), so you don't run into the confusion you do with English.

Still … if English was easy, you wouldn't need teachers and we'd all be out of a job!