# FR: je dois / je devrais - devoir : indicatif ou conditionnel ? - I must / I should



## Areyou Crazy

bonsoir 
j'ai une question.
devoir is ok a cauchemar...REally, I would like to know the difference between *je dois *and *je devrais 
*If it is I l* must* and *I should* then that is simple

*je devais faire le shopping* = *I was supposed to do the shopping* OR I *had to do the shopping*?  I have heard .. *'normallement je devais faire le shopping  mais aujourd hui il a plu'...

tu me dois = you owe me *ok simple
*tu dois faire ca = You must do that?
*
*il a du voir = he must have seen*   ? (deduction about the past)
*tu devrais voir ton papa = you should see your dad?

tu aurais du voir ton papa = you should have seen your dad? (*but you didn't)

Merci d'avance- appreciate any thoughts


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## geostan

Aside from all the missing accents, your take on the meanings of devoir are fine!


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## FBC

All the other meanings are OK as geostan said.


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## funnyhat

I know that both of these words can be translated with _devoir_. But then, how do you distinguish between the two meanings in French? With _should_, there is still a bit of uncertainty, while with _must_, there is no doubt that it is required. For example, consider the following two sentences in English:

1. "You should go there." (i.e., "I think going there is your best option.")

2. "You must go there." (i.e., "You have to go there. There is no alternative.")

What I'm looking for is how to capture the first meaning here. Is there any semantic difference between "_tu_ _dois y aller_" and "_il faut que tu ailles_"? Would one of those work?


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## madolo

1. you should go there :tu devrais y aller (advice)
2. you must go there: tu dois y aller  / (everyday speech): il faut que tu y ailles ( = you have to...)There is no semantic difference. "tu dois y aller" is  more formal


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## ratonlaveur

so to summarise:

dois - to have to/must (something prescribed)
devrais - should          (something recommended)

?


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## deonticmodals

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for the french counterparts of the following two sentences:

(1) Philip must study before he may play.
(2) Philip should study before he may play.

(2) should sound a little funky to native English speakers -- that's why I'm interested in it. I'm wondering if the French counterparts to (1) and (2) are the following:

(3) Philip *doit *étudier avant qu’il peut jouer.
(4) Philip *doit *étudier avant qu’il puisse jouer.
(5) Philip *devrait *étudier avant qu’il peut jouer.
(6) Philip *devrait*étudier avant qu’il puisse jouer.

My intuition is that (1)=(3) and (2)=(6), but I'm interested in what native French speakers think. Does (5) or (6) sound malformed, despite being a proper translation of (2)?

Thanks,
DM


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## jann

The first problem is that _avant que_ must always be followed by the subjunctive, so your sentences (3) and (5) are not really possible.  As you have no choice of mode after _avant que_, the fact that the subjunctive appears there does not convey any nuance.  It is nothing more than a grammatical feature of French.

As it happens, there is only one subject in your sentence, so it would be far more natural to use an infinitive construction in the second half, regardless of how you write the first half:  _Il doit/devrait étudier *avant de (pouvoir) jouer*._ 

That means that a large part of your question boils down to using the present vs. the conditional of _devoir_.  As you realize, _doit_ in the present is "must" or "has to" and _devrait_ in the conditional is "should."

The difficulty that you have identified comes not from French but from English.  "He _may_ play" is a granting of permission.  If one is going to attach conditions to granting permission, one does so in the absolute.  Either there is a requirement, or there isn't one.  Either he must study before you will allow him to play, or else you do not impose the condition and you will in fact let him play even if he hasn't studied.  Stating the requirement in the conditional as a preface to granting permission is thus illogical, which is what makes sentence (2) problematic in English.

Either state the condition in the absolute as you did in sentence (1) and then grant permission, or else state the condition as advice (he should) but don't use a permission-granting formula (Philip should study before playing / before he plays / etc.) so that the entire sentence may be understood as a non-binding guideline or as an expression of preference.

I would argue that the same logic applies in French.  Since _pouvoir_ (or something like _avoir le droit_) conveys the statement of permission, it makes sense to pair it with _il doit_ to make the prerequisite absolute.  But if you want to provide advice or a statement of preference, you can use _il devrait_ and omit _pouvoir._


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## labarbe

Jann's explanation is very complete, and should help you iron a lot of these problems out.  

The only thing I have to add is that I think you're getting too hung up on the word "may"...

The use of "may" sounds old-fashioned to me, but not necessarily wrong, in sentence 1. I can imagine some English nanny in the 1800s saying that a child "must study before he may play". 

Child: "May I play?"
Nanny: "You may"

For me, "may" should be translated in deonticmodals' sentences by "avoir le droit de". 

I was often told (largely incorrectly) in school that "may" should automatically be translated by the subjuctive, so I see where you are coming from, but I agree with Jann that an infinitive construction should be used, giving:

a) Philip doit travailler* avant d'avoir le droit de jouer
b) Philip devrait travailler* avant d'avoir le droit de jouer 

This also gets rid of the inherent problem of the conditional raised by Jann ; sentence b) essentially becomes a watered down version of sentence a), and is therefore logical. Philip _should_ work before being allowed to play (=advice), but that doesn't necessary mean that he _must _(=command).
Try it in English for sentence B - it works much better. "Philip should study before being allowed to play"

*NB. careful with your use of "étudier"! it does mean "to study", but in the sense "to study _a subject _(English / maths / science...)" or "to inspect" (je l'ai étudié de près = I've studied it very closely). 
There are lots of alternatives - faire ses études, faire ses devoirs, travailler, réviser ses leçons...


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## Maître Capello

I agree with Jann's comments; the sentences should read:

Philip must study before he may play. = _Philip doit étudier avant de pouvoir jouer / avant d'avoir le droit de jouer._
Philip should study before playing. = _Philip devrait étudier avant de jouer._



labarbe said:


> *NB. careful with your use of "étudier"! it does mean "to study", but in the sense "to study _a subject _(English / maths / science...)" or "to inspect" (je l'ai étudié de près = I've studied it very closely).


As a matter of fact, _étudier_ *can* be used intransitively like in English…


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## deonticmodals

Thanks so much for the lovely answers. As labarbe noted, I _am_ hung up on `may'. The reason behind my interest in the sentence as I state it (using old-fashioned `may'), as opposed to "Philip must study before he plays" or "Philip must study before he has the right to play," (fr: `avoir le droit de...") is that the current semantics for modals predicts that (2) is felicitous, when it is not. This cries out for explanation. My hope is that this fact is cross-linguistically robust.

So while
(7) ``Philip should study before he plays" = ``Philip devrait etudier avant de jouer''. 
Does 
(8) ``Philip should study before he may play'' = ``Philip devrait etudier avant qu'il puisse jouer''
?

Does the French sentence in (8) sound malformed to you native speakers? Is there a good syntactic reason why it _is_ malformed, or does such an explanation rest in semantics, as I hope it does.

Jann writes "If one is going to attach conditions to granting permission, one does so in the absolute." What do you mean by the absolute here? Is this a semantic or syntactic category? I'd appreciate if you could elaborate on your explanation; it sounds informative.

Thanks again!


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## arundhati

It's not really malformed, it's just a little clumsy, and doesn't convey the right meaning here.
As  said before, "devrait" would be "should "and not "must". And using  subjonctive here is not useful, and makes the sentence heavier.
So "Philip must study before he may play'' = "Philip doit étudier avant de pouvoir jouer" or if it's not in an immediate future "Philip devra étudier avant de pouvoir jouer".


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## jann

I'm afraid I'm not a specialist!


> Does the French sentence in (8) sound malformed to you native speakers? Is there a good syntactic reason why it _is_ malformed, or does such an explanation rest in semantics, as I hope it does.





arundhati said:


> It's not really malformed, it's just a little clumsy, and doesn't convey the right meaning here.
> As  said before, "devrait" would be "should "and not "must". And using   subjonctive here is not useful, and makes the sentence heavier.


I would actually disagree slightly with Arundhati here.  Sentence (8) *is* malformed, and syntactically so, because it is considered erroneous to use a conjugated verb in the subordinate clause when both subjects are the same.  You are supposed to use an infinitive construction instead.  Now this "error" is not so absolute as to render the sentence impossible on the lips of a native speaker.  It merely sounds clumsy.  But the problem is not a question of semantics (meaning).



> Does
> (8) ``Philip should study before he may play'' = ``Philip devrait etudier avant qu'il puisse jouer''
> ?


Short answer: no.  
Real question: why?  Because you need an infinitive construction, which has nothing to do with the semantic issues you seek. But you could say that English sentence (2/8) = _Philippe devrait étudier avant de pouvoir jouer.   _And yes, this would be an odd thing to say in French, too.

Now let me change your example slightly so that we can bypass this business about an infinitive construction. Imagine two  children, Philippe and his sister. Philippe has to finish his  homework before they can go play together.  Now we have two different subjects  ("Philippe" and "they"), so the subjunctive is syntactically obligatory in  the French subordinate clause, regardless of which mode you use in the  principal:

_(a) Philippe doit étudier avant qu'ils ne puissent jouer / avant qu'ils n'aient le droit de jouer. 
= _He must study before they may play.

_(b) Philippe devrait étudier avant qu'ils ne jouent _[subjunctive].
= He should study before they play.

As you see, verb conjugation in the subordinate  clause is not what changes.  The difference between the statement granting permission (a)  and the one stating preference (b) is that the idea of "may" (expressed  as _pouvoir_ or _avoir le droit_ in French) is removed.  

So if you're looking for equivalence in malformed or "unfelicitous" sentences, I think you can say (2)=(8)=(c).  These sentences are problematic for the semantic reason that an expression of semantically conditional permission ("he must...before he may") is incompatible with a syntactically conditional expression of mere preference ("he should").  More on this below.  It just so happens that while the syntax of expressing requirements and preferences is the same in both languages, the syntax of granting permission is different. 

(2/8) Philippe should study before they may play. 
(c) _Philippe devrait étudier avant qu'ils ne puissent (n'aient le droit de) jouer_.



> Jann writes "If one is going to attach conditions to granting permission, one does so in the absolute." What do you mean by the absolute here? Is this a semantic or syntactic category? I'd appreciate if you could elaborate on your explanation; it sounds informative.


 I'm afraid that was just me using the words that came to mind; these were not specialist terms or a reference to an established theory.  

What I meant by "in the absolute" was what I tried to explain in the following two sentences:  "Either there is a requirement, or there isn't one.  Either he must  study before you will allow him to play, or else you do not impose the  condition and you will in fact let him play even if he hasn't studied."  There is no grey area in the middle with a sort-of-but-not-actual-requirement-reflecting-your-preference (i.e., there is no "he should study") upon which you can grant permission.  So assuming you do set the condition that must be met if your permission is to be granted (which is what I mean by "absolute"), we can use formal logic to conclude that if he is playing, then either (a) he has already studied or (b) he is playing without your permission. 

Now unless you're one of those parents who say things they don't actually mean, if you do not intend to enforce the condition, then you will not state it as an absolute requirement.  You will not say "he must study" when what you really mean is "he should study." And if there is no condition which must be met in order for him to have your permission to go play, there is no point in saying anything whatsoever beyond "He may play."  So what do you do if you want/prefer/advise him to study before playtime? You state a preference.  Preferences are inherently different from statements that grant permission, both semantically and syntactically... hence the problems with statement (2).

Is this thinking semantic or syntactic?  I don't know.  It's both!


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## labarbe

Good old felicity conditions! Depends on which definition you are taking - Austin or Seale's? For Austin, the sentence "Philip should study before he may play'' is infelicitous as it does not commit a speech act. For Seale, it could be considered as felicitous (although I think he refuses this term?) as it could be considered to be committing the illocutionary act of expressing an opinion. "(I think that) Philip should study before he may play". Gosh, it's been a long time since I thought about these things! 

Felicity conditions aside, for me "Philip should study before he may play'' sounds wrong... It achieves its linguistic goal, because I _understand_ what the speaker is aiming to express, but it sounds clumsy, even non-native, to me. A calque of an accepted construction in another language? (but not French!) 

Incidentally, that means that the sentence violates Austin's condition of complete execution : _Complete execution_: the speaker completes the speech act *without errors *or interruptions (merci, Wikipedia!)


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## janpol

Il doit d'abord travailler, il pourra jouer ensuite.


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## DankyBoi23

In school, I learned that the conditional of devoir is equivalent to "should" in English, as in "Je devrais faire ____," which would translate to "I should do ____." However, I hear native speakers using "dois" instead of "devrais" when I would say "should" in English. Are they equivalent? Is there a nuanced context in which one fits but not the other? Please help!


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## Garoubet

I think you're right, but can you give us some exemples where you hear "dois" instead of "devrais"?


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## tartopom

Do you mean you hear guys saying, for example, ' Je dois partir.' that is " I must go."  
instead of ' I should go' i.e. ' Je devrais partir'.


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## DankyBoi23

Garoubet said:


> I think you're right, but can you give us some exemples where you hear "dois" instead of "devrais"?





tartopom said:


> Do you mean you hear guys saying, for example, ' Je dois partir.' that is " I must go."
> instead of ' I should go' i.e. ' Je devrais partir'.


I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but once I hear something/find something I will update this thread! Thank you for your quick replies, I didn’t get a notification that anyone had responded.


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## melimelo2205

It's difficult without context but we (french people) use "je devrais" if there is a condition even if it's not said in the sentence. For example : je devrais venir si j'avais le courage (sous entendu, je n'ai pas le courage). You can hear somebody says only "je devrais venir" but in his mind there is a condition not pronounced. In "je devrais" you have the idea of : Yes, it's sure, it will be better if I do that but there is often a condition which prevent me from doing it. In my example,  my lack of braveness. So with "je devrais", I don't do what it needs to be done whereas with "je dois" I do. I hope that helps you.


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## DankyBoi23

melimelo2205 said:


> It's difficult without context but we (french people) use "je devrais" if there is a condition even if it's not said in the sentence. For example : je devrais venir si j'avais le courage (sous entendu, je n'ai pas le courage). You can hear somebody says only "je devrais venir" but in his mind there is a condition not pronounced. In "je devrais" you have the idea of : Yes, it's sure, it will be better if I do that but there is often a condition which prevent me from doing it. In my example,  my lack of braveness. So with "je devrais", I don't do what it needs to be done whereas with "je dois" I do. I hope that helps you.


Yes, I think that helps! So if I were to say, “Je devrais ranger ma chambre aujourd’hui,” that would imply that I SHOULD clean my room, but that I won’t for some reason, whereas if I were to say, “Je dois ranger ma chambre,” that would imply that I should, and will. Is that correct? Thank you!


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## Chimel

DankyBoi23 said:


> So if I were to say, “Je devrais ranger ma chambre aujourd’hui,” that would imply that I SHOULD clean my room, but that I won’t for some reason


I won't, or perhaps I will but it's not quite sure yet.



DankyBoi23 said:


> However, I hear native speakers using "dois" instead of "devrais" when I would say "should" in English. Are they equivalent? Is there a nuanced context in which one fits but not the other? Please help!


It's true that _je dois is_ normally the equivalent of _I must_ and _je devrais_ of _I should do_, but I have also noticed that, for some reason, you sometimes tend to say _should _in English when we say _dois/doit_. For instance: "The members should pay their annual fee before February 1st" would be "Les membres doivent payer…".

I have a feeling that, in such a case,_ should_ is used to express a sort of "polite obligation", but still an obligation, whereas if you say _devraient_ the idea is that it is better to do so, but it is not really an obligation.


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## melimelo2205

“Je devrais ranger ma chambre aujourd’hui,”  means that it's necessary to clean my bedroom up, it's the mess and I don't support it any more. It means that I know I have to do it absolutely but, yes, as you said, for some reason, I won't do it today. Like Chimel said, I will do one day but surely not today. When the good day will come to do it, I will say : "Je dois ranger ma chambre aujourd'hui" et there are many chances that I will do today or even right now.


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