"You have to eat something."
Translation:Tu dois manger quelque chose.
51 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
In your sentence (which is grammatically correct), you loose the “directivity” of the order. You can say « il faut » but then you need to make it clear you're speaking to, let's say, the person in front of you: « il faut que TU mages quelque chose ».
I'm not sure my explanation is clear... Don't hesitate to ask.
Yes, I do understand, but I just thought I might've been correct, because the situation is never clear with these sentences on DL. Thanks for the explanation!
2007
I said the same as Ludwig what's wrong with: ' il faut manger quelque chose'? I suspect nothing but the computer hasn't been told to accept it.
- 2173
chrisleebrown
Il faut = IT is necessary (to eat)
Tu dois = YOU have to (eat)
There is a difference. Duo wants you to learn the difference.
Any time (as far as I know, I'm still a beginner) a verb directly follows another verb, and often (but not always) when it's "[verb] to [verb]", you must use the infinitive.
You have to (or must) go. Tu dois aller. (Not vas.) I can speak. Je peux parler. (Not parle.) He must drink. Il doit boire. (Not boit.) He wants to swim. Il veut nager. (Not nage.) She likes to run. Elle aime courir. (Not court.)
The one exception that I do know about is "starts/begins to." Then you have to use the "à" plus the infinitive. I know there are others like this, but I can't give good examples.
He starts to run. Il commence à courir. She begins to study. Elle commence à étudier.
It has to do with the complexe verbal predicate, that means the predicate is composed of not only one verb, but of two verbs: [have to] + [eat].
In a construction with a complexe predicate, such as:
You + [have to] + [eat]
the first verb [have to] has to agree with the subject [You] regarding person (2nd) and number (singular). So [have to] is inflected: [dois].
The second verb [eat] musn't be inflected but has to be an infinitive: [manger].
What bout this one... Nous avons manger quelque chose.
What can be wrong with it?
"Avoir" is "to have" more in the sense of posession. Nous avons deux autos. "Devoir" is "must" or "to have to". Nous devons aller au gymnase aujourd'hui. (Haha, that last one is true, and hubby will whine about it.)
The words "have to" in the sentence belong together and are a fixed expression in English meaning "must". You have to translate the meaning of the expression and not the individual words. It seems you wanted to translate "have" with "avoir" which makes no sense. (Oddly enough, if you speak what you wrote, it sounds exactly like "Nous avons mangé quelqe chose" which means "We have eaten something.")
Guys stop the discussion and go eat something. Becaus vous devez manger quelque chose
You only conjugate one verb, in this case devoir. The second verb is in the infinitive form. "Vous devez manger quelque chose". Or: "Tu dois manger…" (Since "manger" and "mangez" sound the same it's easy to get mixed up.)
- 1139
Everything made sense except why use "dois" instead of "avez" as in vous avez manger...
"Avoir" is "to have" as in to possess something (mostly). "Vous avez une nouvelle voiture." You have a new car. If you want to say you have to do something, it's "devoir," which is like "must" or "to have to." "Vouz devez acheter une nouvelle voiture." You must buy a new car.
Or, you can say, "Vous avez besoin d'acheter une nouvelle voiture." (You have the need to buy a new car.)
I tried "Vous dois manger quelque chose." which was not accepted. How would I say this same thing with the formal pronoun / why is this incorrect?
"Vous devez manger quelque chose." The conjugation of "devoir" was incorrect in your version.
Meg! Thanks! For some reason I was thinking it was a preposition or something. Merci beaucoup!
I answered correctly with, "Tu dois manger quelque chose", but would "Il faut que tu mange quelque chose" have worked as well?
- 908
It also accepts the subjunctive
\"Il faut que tu manges quelque chose"
in case anyone is wondering.
I think there was a conversation about "devoir" vs. "falloir" somewhere which I'll have to look up, but I think the sentiment of each is quite different.
- 190
What is wrong with "Tu dois manger quelque"? It put "chose" at the end. I thought quelque meant "something." What does the "chose" add?
The "chose" is the "thing." Quelque is just "some." "Quelque chose," something.
Would saying that to a french person be natural? To me it just sounds as if someone was saying "you have to eat some things", like "you have to eat an item of food" - very alienated....
Yes, it seems pretty natural to me. A LOT of things seem odd as we translate them from English to French, and a lot of things sound alike in French, but context helps in the real world.
After conjugating the first verb, leave the second one in the infinitive (Tu dois MANGER). Also, while that sentence wouldn't technically be incorrect, it leaves out the "something" asked for in this exercise.
I wrote il faut que vous mangez quelque chose, but it changed mangez to mangiez, the imperfect tense spelling. I had a look on wikipedia but i still cant understand what makes this sentence in imperfect tense? Thanks for any help!
"Mangiez" is the subjunctive mood which, in this case, is identical with the imperfect. If you say "Il faut manger" you use the infinitive. However if you say "Il faut que vous….." then you have to use the subjunctive mood. Certain expressions require the subjunctive and this is one of them.
Why "Tu as besoin de manger quelque chose" didn't work? It is right. Isn't it?
Well, technically, that means "You need to eat something," instead of "You have to eat something." In this case, the meanings are pretty similar, but there is a subtle difference. Duolingo is using "have to" as in "must," both of which are a bit stronger than "need." Despite this, I definitely understand your point. The verb "have to" is ambiguous. "Must" and "need" are less ambiguous. But in general, use devoir for "have to" because it captures the slightly stronger meaning.
