Learn Spanish (Latin America): Debemos extraer el panal muy despacio. - We must extract the honeycomb very slowly.

Debemos extraer el panal muy despacio.

We must extract the honeycomb very slowly.

Breakdown of Debemos extraer el panal muy despacio.

Questions & Answers about Debemos extraer el panal muy despacio.

Why does this sentence use debemos without de before extraer?

In this lesson, we are looking at the difference between obligation and probability. Here, debemos extraer means 'we must extract'—it is an obligation or a strong requirement. If we said debemos de extraer, it would mean 'we must be extracting' in the sense of a guess or probability, which would not make sense for an action we are planning to do carefully.

Could I say tenemos que extraer instead of debemos extraer?

Yes, tenemos que also expresses obligation and is extremely common in everyday Latin American Spanish. Deber followed by an infinitive is a slightly more formal or direct way of saying 'must' or 'ought to'. Note that unlike tener, deber attaches directly to the infinitive without que.

Does despacio need to agree with anything, like if the noun were feminine or plural?

No. In this sentence, despacio functions as an adverb describing how we extract the honeycomb (slowly). Adverbs do not change for gender or number. While it ends in an -o like a masculine adjective, it stays exactly the same no matter what the subject or object of the sentence is.

What is the difference between using extraer and the more common verb sacar here?