Word
Vous devez vous servir de l'écorce.
Meaning
You must use the bark.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Vous devez vous servir de l'écorce.
vous
you (plural/formal)
devoir
to have to / must
l'écorce
the bark (f)
se servir de
to use
Questions & Answers about Vous devez vous servir de l'écorce.
Wait, doesn't servir mean "to serve"? Why is it translated as "use"?
While servir alone means "to serve", adding the reflexive pronoun and the preposition de creates the pronominal verb se servir de. This is an idiomatic shift that changes the meaning entirely to "to use" or "to make use of", making it a very common alternative to utiliser.
Why is the reflexive pronoun vous here when the verb servir is in its infinitive form?
When a reflexive verb is used in the infinitive (often after a conjugated modal verb like devez), the reflexive pronoun must still agree with the subject of the sentence. Since the subject is Vous, the infinitive phrase becomes vous servir instead of the dictionary form se servir.
Can I just say vous servir l'écorce without the de?
No, the preposition de is strictly required for this meaning. The full verbal expression is se servir de quelque chose (to make use of something). If you drop the de, the meaning reverts closer to the original "serving", as if you were serving the bark to someone as a meal!
Is there a difference in meaning between se servir de l'écorce and utiliser l'écorce?