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Five Minute Study - SPANISH and ENGLISH compared Guía de la gramática inglesa...
En estas lecciones breves se comparan el inglés hablado y coloquial con el español con el fin de ayudar al estudiante a apreciar tanto las diferencias como las similitudes lingüísticas entre los dos idiomas.
Prepositions (8)
Spanish "de" with "deber" and English translations compared
To talk about supposition (or making guesses) about something or 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 or, (Tienes que hacer tus deberes)
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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