devoir imparfait
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devoir imparfait
I think I understand what you're asking here.
The verb devoir in L'Imparfait will usually be translated as "I had to" or "I was supposed to", as such:
I was supposed to call him, but I didn't have time.
Il devait absolument le faire ce jour-là.
He absolutely had to do it that day.
À bientôt !
Hi Aurélie,
The other day I found myself trying to say (verbally), by starting off 'Je devrais..', e.g. "I should do..", and stalling, having wanted to turn it into "I should have done" - I was probably doing along the lines of what the 6 May 2018 poster was thinking ('I must have had to..' rather than 'I would have had..').I think this lesson and your above response explains it.
To get the stupid question out of the way, there's no way 'Je devrais avoir eu' makes any sense, is there? (I'm guessing I was trying to construct the conditional past by combining conditional present and pluperfect).
Thanks!
Tom
Bonjour Tom !
This is definitely not the colloquial way to express Le Conditionnel Passé in French :)
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