Special Uses of Devoir

Devoir is one of the trickiest verbs to translate and use in French.  The
following is a list of the different meanings of devoir used in various tenses.

Present Tense	must, have to probably	Je dois étudier. Il doit être malade.	I must (have to) study. He's probably sick.
Passé Composé	had to (and did), must have	Il a dû partir.	He had to leave.
Imperfect	was supposed to, used to have to	Elle devait chanter ce soir.	She was supposed to sing tonight.
Future	will have to	Tu devras payer l'argent.	You will have to pay money.
Conditional	should	Vous devriez manger les fruits.	You should eat fruits.
Past Conditional	should have	Ils auraient dû jouer.	They should have played.

---

This article was used with permission from:
Indo-European Languages