Breakdown of Tu dois choisir qui attaquer, le dragon ou le gobelin.
tu
you (informal singular)
ou
or
qui
who
devoir
to have to / must
choisir
to choose
le
him, it (masculine direct object pronoun)
attaquer
to attack
le dragon
the dragon
le gobelin
the goblin
Questions & Answers about Tu dois choisir qui attaquer, le dragon ou le gobelin.
Why do we say qui attaquer with an infinitive instead of a conjugated verb?
This is the core of an indirect question with an infinitive! Because the person doing the choosing (you) is the same person who will do the attacking, French can take a shortcut. Just like in English ("who to attack"), you use the question word qui directly followed by the infinitive attaquer.
If the dragon or goblin is the object of the attack, shouldn't we use que instead of qui?
It is easy to mix these up! As a relative pronoun, que replaces objects. But here, qui is an interrogative pronoun (a question word) meaning "who" or "whom". When asking a question about a person or a character, "who" or "whom" is always qui, even if they are the object of the verb. If you used que, it would mean "what to attack".
Could I say lequel attaquer instead of qui attaquer?
Why isn't there a preposition like à or de between dois and choisir?
The verb devoir (must / to have to) is a modal verb, much like pouvoir (can) and vouloir (to want). These verbs are always followed directly by the infinitive of the next verb, so no preposition is needed between them.
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