#18 - Should & Devoir

This word is an interesting case.  Though it's not 100% untranslatable, it can lead to some very awkward linguistic contortions.  If you look up "should" in a French-English dictionary, you will inevitably find the word devoir.  Simple enough, right?  However, if you flip to the other half of your dictionary and look up devoir, you'll find that it actually means:

• "should"
• "must"
• "have to" 
• "need to"  
• "got to" 
• "supposed to"
• and even "bound to" as in, "That was bound to happen!" (Ça devait arriver !)  

Oh, and it also means "to owe," as in, "to owe somebody money" (Je lui dois de l'argent).

And that's just devoir as a verb!  Devoir as a noun can mean "duty," "obligation," "assignment," or "homework." 

Let's focus on the verb.  As you might have realized, "must, have to, need to," and "got to" are all obligations: something that you must do with no choice or preference on your part.  "Should" is different though.  It's something you ought to do, but you could choose not to.  It's an optional obligation, so to speak.

If you look up "ought" on WordReference.com you get an interesting result.  It's defined as [devoir au conditionnel] ("devoir in the conditional tense").  For those of you who are not grammar nerds, the conditional tense is basically any verb preceded by "would."

• I would go skydiving.  (Je ferais du parachutisme).
• I wouldn't eat that if I were you.  (Moi, je ne le mangerais pas).

In English, of course, you can't put "should" or "ought" in the conditional tense: "I would should go" or "I would ought to finish this" wouldn't make any sense in our language.  In French, however, you can put devoir in the conditional tense, which makes it more hypothetical.  

WordReference offers this example:
Je devrais sortir la poubelle, mais je ne vais pas le faire. ("I should take out the trash, but I'm not going to.")

By changing the present tense Je dois ("I must") to the conditional tense Je devrais ("I should") they make the obligation hypothetical--and therefore not necessarily one that is going to be fulfilled.

You might say, "Well, then the French do have an exact equivalent for should!  They just use a verb conjugation instead of adding a separate word."  To some extent, that is true.  However, there are lots of situations when the French use the simple present tense Je dois while an English speaker would be more likely to say, "I should."  Saying "I should go" in English, doesn't necessarily imply that you won't go.  Depending on the context, it could simply be a polite way of stating your obligation, or perhaps expressing a reluctance to leave--but you will leave anyway.  In many cases, whether you translate Je dois as "I must/should/have to," etc. is really based on the context and the translator's discretion.

Not to mention, this also makes translating phrases like "I would have to, but..." virtually impossible. In French, both "I would have to, but..." and "I should, but..." would become: "Je devrais le faire, mais...."  Of course, in English they're not the same.  The first one refers to an responsibility which would exist if the situation were otherwise, while the second one refers to a responsibility which does exist...but which might be ignored.  In order to make this distinction clear in French you'd have to have a bit more context or explanation.

To top it off, here's a whole crazy list of different conjugations that you can make with devoir:

• Je devais - "I was supposed to" / "I had to" / "I used to have to" / "I was bound to" (continuous)
• J'ai dû - "I had to" / "I must have" (not continuous)
• J'avais dû - "I'd had to" (often used with "if")
• J'aurais dû - "I should have" / "I would've had to"
• Je devrai - "I should" (future tense) / "I will have to"
• Je devrais - "I should" / "I would have to"

Isn't it great fun when grammatical worlds collide?  ;-)


*For more examples and explanations about devoir, you can check out the About.com page: http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/devoir.htm
*For more examples and explanations about "should," you can check out the LaRousse page: http://larousse.fr/dictionnaires/anglais-francais/should/611494