Expressing “To not have to” vs. “must not”
Apologies if this has been covered before but am at a little bit of loss as to how to phrase search terms to find it. My question is how to phrase “to not have to” versus “must not” so I don’t say one when I mean the other.
The book I ran across this issue in (Barron’s Spanish Pronouns & Prepositions, chapter 4) has the sample sentence: Claudia no debe que comprar el libro. Claudia must not buy the book.
If I wasn't told otherwise, my translation of that sentence would be “Claudia doesn’t have to buy the book,” because in English you say “Claudia doesn’t have to” versus “Claudia has to not” and it seems like the difference is expressed mostly in word order. ñ Wirsing’s Ultimate Phrase Finder (one of my go-to references) has the following sample: Los oficiales de bajo rango no deberan responder por los errors del comandante. The low-level officers should not have to answer for the commander’s mistakes. Okay, now that just muddies it, if you believe both sources then that would mean no deber que can mean either one. How do I be clear?
I was tempted to just go to “no tiene que” instead but then questioned whether that was the same thing. I suppose I could say “no tiene la obligacion de” and that would be clear when I mean not have to, but that doesn’t seem like everyday speech. The machine translators seem to mostly say “no tiene por que” but that doesn’t make sense to me, is that an idiom?
Thanks for any advice, sorry no international keyboard available here
5 Answers
How about using necesitar?
Claudia no necesita comprar el libro.
Claudia doesn't need to buy the book.
Deber is rather tricky but as far as I understand its use here are some examples ...
No debe comprar = mustn't buy
No debería comprar = shouldn't buy
No debería haber comprado = shouldn't have bought
No debía de comprar = mustn't have bought
No deberá comprar = won't have to buy
And as you mentioned another good option would be to use tener que ...
No tiene que comprar = doesn't have to buy
don't have to (do it) = no tiene que hacerlo
must not = no debe hacerlo -> (present Indicative)
should not = no debería hacerlo -> (conditional)
would not = no lo haría -> (conditional)
I have listened to michel Thomas teaching spanish course and he is an excellent teacher. But I suspect he may have made a mistake here. He says : tiene que esperar = you have to wait = you must wait. Therefore : no tiene que esperar = you must not wait. Also no debe esperar = you must not wait He says that if you want to express : you don't have to wait. You must find an alternative way of expressing the concept eg : no necesita esperar Or : no es necesario que espere However other people have told me that " no tiene que esperar" expresses the concept "you don't have to wait" I suspect this may be one of those very rare occasions where michel Thomas has made a teaching mistake.
OK, so the general direction seems to be to study deber more closely ... I can do that.
Hopefully you have people you can talk to. If that's the case, do a little less studying and just start using the constructions in conversation. If you get it wrong they'll probably correct you and you'll learn 10 times faster.
Also make sure you're listening to a lot of Spanish and be on the look out for uses of deber. Once you hear how it's used, you'll know how to use it yourself.
OK, thanks for the suggestions. I think I have the answer to the immediate question, but the more general problem seems to be I have to study deber more closely. I can do that.
