- In this video, we're going to be looking
at "devoir" and "falloir".
Is there much of a difference between the two?
Let's find out. Let's go!
(upbeat music)
- Bonjour everyone and welcome to Coffee Break French.
I'm Mark.
- And I'm Pierre-Benoît.
- And as Pierre-Benoît said,
today we are looking at two interesting verbs,
both of which mean something very similar.
But this comes from listener Dan who got in touch asking
is there much difference between "devoir" and "falloir".
Now both verbs have got something to do with
"to have to do something" or "must do something".
But there is a difference. Pierre-Benoît.
- Yes. It's a very good question Dan.
And there is a difference in a sense
that "falloir" belongs to a higher register of language
and it's also more of an impersonal structure.
Whereas "devoir" is more personal.
So I think we should start with "devoir".
- Okay. So let's look at some examples and then we'll see
how those same examples would work with "falloir".
But first of all, before we do anything else
let us conjugate "devoir". It's a conjugated verb
so let's go through this now.
- Je dois.
- I must.
- Tu dois.
- You must.
- Il doit. Elle doit.
- He or she must.
- Nous devons.
- We must.
- Vous devez.
- You must.
- Ils doivent or elles doivent.
- They must. And again, we could be saying, "I have to",
"you have to". It's the same meaning.
- Yeah. - Okay. So Pierre-Benoît
can you give us some examples here of how we would use
"devoir" in some sentences? - Oui.
Yeah. "Je dois partir".
- Okay. "Je dois partir"
"I must leave" or "I have to leave".
- Very good.
- Okay.
- One with "you", with "tu".
"Tu dois manger plus".
- Okay. "Tu dois manger plus".
"You need to eat more".
So there, I just wached that "plus".
We pronounce the "s" on "plus" because it means "more"
but we'll have another video
about that sometime soon I'm sure.
- (Pierre-Benoît laughing) - Okay.
- One with "nous": "nous devons écouter CBF!".
- Ah. Very good. (Mark laughing)
- "Nous devons
- (Pierre-Benoît laughing)
- ècouter...".
So "we must
listen to Coffee Break French".
"Nous devons écouter Coffee Break French".
Very good. One more. Let's do one more.
- One with "elles" plural.
"Elles doivent prendre le train".
"Elles doivent...
So, we've got the third person plural form.
"Elles doivent...
- Yep.
- prendre le train".
"They must take the train". Okay. So far so good.
These are all using "devoir"
and they're all, as we see, conjugated just the same way
as we've got the full conjugation of the verb up here.
But, what happens with "falloir"? Because "falloir"
you said is impersonal, an impersonal construction.
- Yes. So all our sentences will start with "il".
- So let's just explain what would happen.
We can't quite conjugate "falloir"
because it only has one part in each tense.
But what we would use is "il"-something-"faut",
but we need to put something in the middle there.
We need an indirect object pronoun.
- Right. Yep.
- So...
- So, the first one, if it was like the equivalent of
"I", would be "il me faut".
- So something like "it is necessary to me
to do something". "I must do something".
- "Il me faut".
- And we change it to "il te faut".
- Okay. So "you must do something".
"It is necessary to you to do something".
- And if it's a "he" or a "she", "il lui faut".
- Now, this is quite tricky, because we need to remember
here is it's "lui", regardless of whether it's a "he"
or a "she", because of course we need to use
that third person indirect object pronoun
and it's always "lui".
- Yeah.
- So "il lui faut".
- Okay. Now let's go into the plural forms "il nous faut".
- Okay. And all the time "faut" is staying the same.
"Il nous faut". We must, or it is necessary
for us to do something.
- "Il vous faut".
- Okay. Same again. "You all must do something".
- Yeah. And that the more difficult the last one.
"Il leur faut".
- Good. Okay. "Il leur faut".
So "they have to do something". "It's necessary
for them to do something".
- Yeah.
- So that's how "falloir" works.
We'll just put "falloir" up here.
"Falloir" works like that.
And then "devoir" works like this.
It's a full conjugated verb.
- We've got "falloir" up there.
That doesn't look much like an 'r'.
- (Pierre-Benoît laughing) - (Mark laughing)
- Okay.
- That's it. It does now. That's good.
- Let's see what happens with these examples
if we're converting them to the "falloir".
So let's look at "je dois partir".
- So "je dois partir" would become "il me faut partir".
- "Il me faut
partir".
Voilà.
Oops, "il leur faut partir".
What about "tu dois manger plus"?
- Well, "tu" would become "te" so "il te faut manger plus".
- "Il te faut
manger
plus."
Voilà. Now I'm sure you can see what is happening here.
We've gone, we're going from
"nous devons écouter Coffee Break French".
What's gonna happen here?
- "Il nous faut
écouter Coffee Break French".
- "Il nous faut ècouter
Coffee Break French". And last one.
"Elles doivent prendre le train".
- "Il leur faut prendre le train".
- So even though this might feel a little strange,
it might feel a little bit - (Pierre-Benoît laughing)
- that it doesn't quite work, but it is absolutely right.
"Il leur faut"...
"It is necessary to them".
- Yeah.
- "Il leur faut prendre
le train".
Voilà.
Okay. Now, Pierre-Benoît, you said earlier
that "falloir" can maybe be slightly higher register.
- So- - Yeah.
- if we were just chatting, we would be more
likely to say "nous devons écouter Coffee Break French"
or "tu dois manger plus".
- Exactly.
- Exactly. I think it's maybe a tiny bit
easier to use "devoir" rather than "falloir"
but both structures are correct.
- Okay. Well hopefully, Dan,
that has explained the difference
in how you use them and also the difference,
the slight difference, in register and how they are used.
Now if you have a question like Dan
then just get in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you.
Just go to coffeebreakquestions.com
where you can leave your question and we will do our best
to answer that in a future episode of our show.
If you've enjoyed this, then please do give it a like
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You can click the little bell icon that appears
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- And if possible...
"il vous faut" or "vous devez",
leave an example of "devoir" or "falloir" in your comments.
On you go!
- Completely. We look forward to reading them too.
Okay. That's it for this episode, we hope you've enjoyed it.
Thank you, Dan, for your question. And thank you everyone!
Goodbye!
- Bye!
(upbeat music)