Tu devrais te méfier de son comportement.

Questions & Answers about Tu devrais te méfier de son comportement.

How does this sentence connect to the lesson on ce dont?
The verb se méfier (to beware / to distrust) is always followed by the preposition de. Because of this de, if you wanted to say 'That is what you should beware of,' you would use ce dont: C'est ce dont tu devrais te méfier. The pronoun dont specifically replaces de plus its object.
Why is it devrais instead of dois?
Devrais is the conditional mood of the verb devoir. While tu dois in the present tense means 'you must' or 'you have to', using the conditional tu devrais softens it to 'you should'. It is the standard way to give advice in French.
Why is there a te before méfier?
The verb for 'to beware' or 'to distrust' is se méfier, which is a reflexive verb. Because your subject is tu, the reflexive pronoun has to match it, which is why se changes to te.
Does son comportement mean 'his behavior' or 'her behavior'?
It could mean either! In French, possessive adjectives like son, sa, and ses agree with the gender of the noun being owned, not the person who owns it. Since comportement is a masculine noun, it must take son, regardless of whether the behavior belongs to a man or a woman.

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