Answers
Dec 02, 2014 - 10:48 AM
Anyone?
Dec 02, 2014 - 01:43 PM
It would help if you gave the exact location of this sentence/exercise. I checked Google translate (not always correct), and "Il devrait lui parler" does in fact translate as "He should speak (talk) to her". But "Il doit lui parler" was he must speak to her, as you surmise. When I put in the other way, "He's supposed to talk to her" I got a verb construction I hadn't seen before. Google translate gives other possible translations, but a form of devoir didn't come up. On the other hand, one could suppose that "supposed to" and "must" are close to the same thing (both imply obligation), while "should" is a bit different, maybe "weaker" in obligation (i.e., he ought to, but he doesn't have to).
I did find "supposed to" as a translation of devoir in the present tense on this site: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/foreign-la...
I would be interested to know if "supposed to" was ever taught in Fluenz French. Unfortunately, the programs are not really searchable, a significant shortcoming for an otherwise excellent product.
I did find "supposed to" as a translation of devoir in the present tense on this site: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/foreign-la...
I would be interested to know if "supposed to" was ever taught in Fluenz French. Unfortunately, the programs are not really searchable, a significant shortcoming for an otherwise excellent product.
Dec 02, 2014 - 07:17 PM
Level 4 Session 23 Type the phrase you see
Dec 03, 2014 - 08:17 AM
Yes I see it. Again, I couldn't readily find where this is discussed in Fluenz tutorials, but the web site I gave says that "is supposed to" is one appropriate translation of "doit."
Dec 03, 2014 - 11:17 AM
Actually after looking at this deeper, the difference seems to be between Should = conditional, and supposed to = present. Now I'm not sure what the difference is in English for this, but that seems to be what French does. I've actually created an app, that I hope Fluenz will pick up, that provides a much better flashcard traininig experience (keeping track of how you're doing, let you test on criteria) plus it also provices a concordance that lets you look up all sentences with a particular french or english word.
Dec 03, 2014 - 12:25 PM
Devoir can be used to express the necessity but also the probability.
@James what you saw was "être censé" + infintive. That means to be supposed to. Je suis censé me lever demain a 8 heures: I'm supposed to wake up tomorrow at 8. You can also use "Je dois me lever" to mean "I'm supposed to" but it sounds more like an obligation than Je suis censé.
@James what you saw was "être censé" + infintive. That means to be supposed to. Je suis censé me lever demain a 8 heures: I'm supposed to wake up tomorrow at 8. You can also use "Je dois me lever" to mean "I'm supposed to" but it sounds more like an obligation than Je suis censé.