Five-minute Spanish Lessons - Lesson 18.

Prepositions (8)

Spanish "de" with "deber" and English translations compared.

To talk about supposition (or making guesses) about some action, we use deber de although in spoken Spanish this may be just deber, which is used to mean obligation eg:

You must do your homework.

Debes hacer tus deberes. (obligation)

so ambiguity may occur...

He must be very strong to lift all that weight.

Debe (de) ser muy fuerte para levantar todo ese peso.

Without the de in these examples, the sentence could infer an obligation.

It must be half past eight.

Deben (de) ser las ocho y media.

You must have worked a lot; you look very tired.

Debiste (de) trabajar mucho; te veo muy cansado.

Without de the meaning could be: you should have worked a lot...; ie. obliging the person to do it.

You must have eaten too much because now you feel ill.

Debes (de) haber comido demasiado porque ahora te encuentras mal.

Without de the meaning could be: you should have eaten too much...; again, obligation.

He must have travelled a lot.

Debía (de) viajar mucho.

Without de colloquial: he ought to travel a lot or he used to have to travel a lot.

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