How could you say "He needs a day off." ?
I answered:
Il a besoin d'un jour de congé.
*Il doit un jour de congé*
How could you say "He needs a day off." ?
I answered:
Il a besoin d'un jour de congé.
*Il doit un jour de congé*
Hi Patrick,
The verb -
devoir quelquechose à quelqu'un = to owe something to someone
Elle me doit de l'argent = She owed me money
Je lui dois beaucoup = I owe a lot to him/her
The verb devoir to mean obligation or something you have to do will be followed by a verb and not a noun -
Je dois aller au supermarché = I must go to the supermarket
Nous devons rendre visite à notre tante = We need/have to visit our aunt
Hope this helps!
Bonjour Patrick,
In one way or another, this type of question has been discussed many times on the forum.
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/questions/search?search=devoir
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/questions/search?search=devoir+besoin
Try them both - they are not the same set of answers
Hope this helps
Bonne journée
Jim
@Cecile, thanks for replying, but unless I'm missing something, your answer doesn't address the question. The one example is use of devoir to mean "owe", which I understand. The other basically says that it means "must/have to", but does not address when to use it to mean "need to"
@Jim, thanks for your response as well. I looked at the links and neither of them appear to address the question.
It would be really nice if Kwiziq could do a quick lesson on it, as it seems to be a recurring problem.
Thank you both for taking the time to respond.
Bonjour Patrick,
When you want to express "to need [something]" (i.e. "to need help/money" for example), you use "avoir besoin de [something]" as explained in the lesson content: "As for expressing to need [something], it will always be avoir besoin de [quelque chose]". Using "devoir" here means something very different (see examples below).
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !
After discussing this with a French speaking friend it seems that if besoin is followed by a verb, you can use the devoir form to mean "need to". If it is followed by a noun you cannot
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