Breakdown of Il n'aurait jamais dû miser tout son capital.
il
he
avoir
to have
ne
not (used before the verb)
son
his/her/its (son, sa, ses)
devoir
to have to / must
jamais
never / ever
tout
all, everything
le capital
the capital
miser
to stake
Questions & Answers about Il n'aurait jamais dû miser tout son capital.
Why do we use aurait dû to mean "should have"?
Aurait is the conditional form of avoir (would have), and dû is the past participle of devoir (to have to / must). Literally, it translates to "would have had to", but in French, the conditional past of devoir is the standard way to express "should have" for regrets and reproaches.
Why is the negation n' ... jamais placed around aurait?
In compound tenses like the conditional past, negative words like ne ... jamais (never) wrap around the conjugated auxiliary verb. Here, the auxiliary is aurait, so it becomes n'aurait jamais. The past participle (dû) and the infinitive (miser) come right after.
Why does dû have a circumflex accent (ˆ) over the u?
The accent distinguishes the past participle of devoir (dû) from the partitive article du (meaning "some" or "of the"). Note that the accent is only used on the masculine singular form of the past participle; the feminine and plural forms drop it (due, dus, dues).
Why is miser in the infinitive here, instead of a past tense form?
When a conjugated verb (even a compound one like aurait dû) is followed directly by another verb, the second verb stays in the infinitive. Here, miser (to bet) is the action he "should not have" done, so it stays in its dictionary form.
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