Questions & Answers about No debes fumar.
The translation says "shouldn't", but doesn't debes mean "must"?
Yes, debes literally means "you must". However, in Spanish, the present tense of deber is often used to give strong advice, which we usually translate as "should" in English. Depending on the situation, no debes fumar can mean either "you must not smoke" (a strict rule) or "you shouldn't smoke" (strong advice). To sound softer, Spanish speakers often use the word deberías.
Why isn't the verb fumar conjugated?
When you have a conjugated helper verb like debes followed immediately by another action, the second verb stays in its infinitive (dictionary) form. It works just like English: we say "must smoke" rather than "must smokes".
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