Once a week, we help improve your French vocabulary by teaching you a new word and explaining some of the ways it’s used in French. This week, we’ve chosen the verb devoir.
To hear the pronunciation of the infinitive form, listen to the audio clip below:
This verb can sometimes feel confusing for learners, because it doesn’t translate quite how you’d expect. If you already know ‘avoir’, meaning ‘to have’, it might feel strange to learn that devoir means ‘to have to’. But we do this in English too – think of the difference between the phrases ‘having a house’ and ‘having to go home’. Devoir can also mean ‘must’ and ‘to owe’.
When it comes to conjugation, you’ll find that devoir is a highly irregular verb. In fact, it’s so irregular that the only way around learning its intricacies is to study the verb table for devoir.
Now, this might feel like a lot of tricky information to get to grips with before we’ve got into the examples…but don’t panic! It’s really a lot easier once you see devoir in action.
Let’s see how devoir might be used in everyday French:
Est-ce que tu dois partir ? Do you have to leave?
Elles doivent arriver à l’heure. They must arrive on time. / They have to arrive on time.
Vous ne pouvez pas attendre, vous devez y aller dès que possible. You can’t wait, you need to go there as soon as possible
Je devais rendre visite à mes parents, mais j’ai oublié. I was supposed to / I was meant to visit my parents, but I forgot.
devoir quelque chose à quelqu’un to owe something to somebody
Jean n’a pas l’argent qui m’est dû. Jean doesn’t have the money that is owed to me.
In the conditional tense, devoir is usually translated ‘should’:
On devrait l’amener à l’hôpital. We should take her to hospital.
Ils ne devraient pas lui en parler. They shouldn’t speak to him about it.
Si tu avais voulu venir, tu aurais dû m’appeler. If you’d wanted to come, you should have called me.
For a little bonus, it’s also worth knowing that devoir can be a masculine noun:
devoir (m) duty; obligation; exercise; homework
Tu ne peux pas sortir avant de finir tes devoirs ! You can’t go out before finishing your homework!
C’est mon devoir de garder cette porte. It’s my duty to guard this doorway.
Congratulations on getting devoir under your belt this week – it’s not an easy one to learn! You’ll have to come back next week to learn another new word and improve your French language skills.
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
