How can I say "to focus"/"to concentrate"?

Question

How can I translate "to focus" (or "to concentrate") in these examples?

• I can't focus because of the noise.
• We have to focus on trying to solve this problem right now.
• She is focusing on her goals.

In dictionaries I found "koncentrigxi" and "fokusi", but when I look in PIV I feel like they are tranlsations of the scientifical terms to focus and to concentrate, and not the kind of verb I am looking for.

Answer 1

Indeed, PIV does give that impression for koncentriĝi (I can't find "fokusi" in either PIV or ReVo), and most (but not all) of the results in the Tekstaro involve concentrating a specific thing, whether literal or metaphorical. However, ReVo defines koncentri sin as "Streĉi la intelektajn fortojn super solvota problemo" and gives koncentriĝi as a synonym (among other definitions), with the example sentence

la vido de viaj streĉitaj mienoj malhelpas min serioze koncentriĝi

In practice, koncentriĝi is the more common word for that meaning, and is so used in some courses, such as "Ana Renkontas" on lernu.net.

Ana: Buboj, ĉesu! Ni devas nun koncentriĝi je la franca testo.
Klasamiko2: Kiel diri "tre bela" en la franca?
Klasamiko3: Mi scias kiel diri "Mi amas vin Ana", se iu volas scii...

But if you want to be more precise, you can say "koncentri la/mian atenton pri/je tio".

Answer 2

The two verbs atenti and celi could be useful even though they are transitive.

atenti (tr)

1 Teni siajn vidon, aŭdon k intelekton fiksitaj al io

and

celi (tr)

[...]

3 Direkti sian agadon, deziron, volon al io, kion oni penas atingi aŭ plenumi

I would use atenti for not being distracted and I would use celi for specifying goals. Hence the sentences would be

• Mi ne povas atenti ion pro la bruo.

• Ni devas celi provi solvi la problemojn nun.

• Ŝi celas siajn celojn.