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Questions & Answers about Debemos respetar la ley.
What does debemos mean here, exactly?
Debemos is the 1st person plural present tense of deber.
In this sentence, deber + infinitive means to have to / must / should depending on context.
So:
- debo = I must / I should
- debes = you must / you should
- debe = he/she/it must; you must (formal)
- debemos = we must / we should
- debéis = you all must / should (Spain)
- deben = they must; you all must
In Debemos respetar la ley, debemos expresses obligation: we must / should.
Why is respetar in the infinitive, not respetamos?
Because after deber, Spanish normally uses an infinitive.
The structure is:
deber + infinitive
So:
- Debemos respetar = we must respect
- not Debemos respetamos
This is similar to English:
- We must respect
- not We must we respect
Other examples:
Why isn’t nosotros included? Shouldn’t it be Nosotros debemos...?