Podcast 87 - Words to express obligation

Story starts at 11:26

Hello and welcome back to Practising English. Today I'm going to be talking about obligation. This is a B1 session and we're going to be looking at those words we use to talk about obligation, and also ways to soften the obligation or make orders or things that we want people to do less direct. Okay, so here we go...

The words that we use to express obligation are: must, have to and then similar words, not necessarily obligation, but strong advice: should and ought to. So let's have a look at those separately.

Use of must and have to

First of all, must, is often overused by students of English. It's an easy word to use, isn't it? If you want somebody to do something, or just to tell them that it's a rule, something that they must do. Now the problem is with must it really sounds like the person who is telling you is the one who is giving the order! So if you are a student, for example, and you say to another student,

You must do this homework tonight

it sounds like you are giving the order. In fact, it's not you, it's the teacher. So 'must' ought to be perhaps softened if there is somebody else giving the order. And I'll come back to that in a moment.

But the other use of 'must' is really to give an order to ourselves, if you like. We often use 'must' when we're talking about us - when we use the first person singular or first person plural. So for example, I might say,

I must telephone my mother tonight.

I suppose I'm giving myself an order. But what it really is, I feel morally obliged that I should do that. It's something that I should do because my mother is alone, and she needs someone to call her and cheer her up. So I must call my mother tonight. Now let's come back, then, to the problem of using 'must' when you say,

You must do your homework.

If the rule has been given by somebody else, for example, a teacher or it might be a regulation. For example, if you're in a park there may be a sign which says,

Please do not walk on the grass.

So really, that's a rule by somebody else - by the people who own the park, for example. So if you tell somebody about that rule about walking on the grass, you should use have to,

You have to walk on the pavement, not on the grass.

There's another good example of that as well. I always remember when I went with a friend of mine to the UK, and we hired a car and he wanted to drive so I got into the passenger seat and we drove off. And the first thing he did was to drive on the right hand side of the road. Now in England, as you know, we drive on the left. So I said to him,

You have to drive on the left, not on the right.

I wouldn't say you must drive on the left because it sounds like I'm giving the order. So

You have to drive on the left

sounds, well, this is the law of the land. This is the rule, the regulations when driving in the UK that you drive on the left hand side. If you don't, you could have a serious accident.

But interestingly, let's look at the negative. So if we're in the park again, and somebody wants to walk on the grass, I could say,

You mustn't walk on the grass

because the negative of 'have to' is 'mustn't' - and the same thing as well in the car. I could say to my friend as he started driving on the right hand side of the road,

Hey, you mustn't drive on the right! You have to drive on the left!

So we don't have that alternative third person rule when we're talking about the negative of 'must'. That could be a problem, I suppose. And I'll come back to that in a moment because I feel I ought to talk first of all about what is the negative of 'have to'.

Don't have to

Well, don't have to! But of course 'don't have to' or 'doesn't have to' has a completely different meaning. For example,

Do you have to wear a tie at work?

Well, if you don't, it is not necessary. You don't need to. Well, then we say,

I don't have to wear a tie at work.

My daughter doesn't have to wear a uniform for school.

But if I wanted to wear a tie at work, I suppose I could do but I don't have to - it's not necessary. It's not a rule.

Making 'mustn't' less direct

So let's come back to this 'mustn't' thing then. Because if I say,

You mustn't drive on the right,

well, it could sound a little too direct. We can soften things or show that it's not me giving you the order. It's an order coming from, well, somewhere else, a regulation. So I could say to my friends sitting in the car driving along the road on the right hand side in the UK, I could say,

Hey, you're not allowed to drive on the right,

or,

You're not meant to drive on the right.

So it's not me who said it - it's the law of the land.

We could even be more gentle. We could say, oh, well, let me think of another example. I think driving on the right hand side of the UK is absolutely stupid. And really, I don't want to be too gentle about it, because it's very important. I want to give an order before we hit a car coming in the opposite direction!

Let's say something for example, somebody who wants to go out in the cold and they're not wearing a coat. Well maybe I don't know that person very well, or he or she is a very sensitive person. So I might say for example,

Don't you think it's a better idea if you take your coat?

or,

Wouldn't it be a good idea to take your coat?

Wouldn't it be a good idea? So these are very gentle ways of making suggestions which don't sound too much like an order.

Giving advice with should and ought to

There is another way of talking about things we want somebody to do. We can put it in the form of advice - and that is using should or shouldn't, ought to or ought not to. So for example, usually in most cities, it's a good idea to lock the door before you leave your house. So you should lock your door because if not, somebody might go in when you're not there. So,

You should lock the door before you leave.

If you're walking along in the countryside, and there's a dog which looks a little bit aggressive, you might say to the person you're with,

Oh, you shouldn't go up to that dog. It looks dangerous.

And I could say as well, you ought not to.

Really, you ought not to go up to that dog.

And the meaning is more or less the same.

Those are the main words and expressions we use to talk about obligation. I'm now going to read you a story. And this story has a lot of examples of these words and phrases. And your task is to get yourself a pen and a piece of paper and write down just the examples that you hear - the ones that I've mentioned. Write them down and then you can check your answers if you go over to Practising English.com.

I'll just explain a couple of words before I start the story. A kennel is a little wooden house kept in the garden for a dog to sleep in - a kennel. And to bark is the sound that dogs make when they're happy or angry [sound of barking]. And there's an expression which is not a B1 expression in this story, and it's to go to the dogs. And that means - well it's an idiomatic expression, which means to get in a very bad state, to get in a bad way. When things go very, very badly. Okay, so let's get on with the story.

The dog-lover

Dogs in story about words of obligation

Jane Barker loved dogs. She lived alone in a huge house in country. Well, alone...! It's true that she didn't live with any other humans but she had more than a dozen dogs. She rescued dogs from the town. People sometimes buy a dog for Christmas and then decide they don't want them anymore. Then they leave them in a park or by the side of the road.

'A dog is for life!' Jane told people. 'You mustn't get rid of them! You should keep them all their lives! They would never leave you by the side of the road.'

So Jane looked after these dogs at home. All the dogs lived inside the house. Some lived in the living-room, some slept in the kitchen, some in the bathroom. There were dogs everywhere in the house! When Jane's friends came round to visit her, they were shocked by the mess in the house and the bad smell.

'Jane,' they asked. 'Don't you think it's a better idea if the dogs live outside? Wouldn't it be a good idea if they lived in a kennel*? Dogs don't have to live in your house.''

But Jane didn't agree.

'How could you say such a cruel thing?' she answered. 'Would you like it if you had to live in a garden? Of course, you wouldn't! So why does a dog have to live outside?'

'Well, if it was just one or two dogs,' her friends said, 'they could live inside, but you've got nearly twenty!'

'I don't agree at all!' answered Jane. 'Dogs are human beings too, didn't you know? We have to be good to them.'

As time passed, Jane's friends visited her less. Jane spent her days looking after, feeding, walking and playing with her dogs. She found more dogs in the town or people brought dogs they didn't want anymore and gave them to Jane. Soon Jane had over a hundred dogs living in her home. The house was now quite disgusting! There was a awful smell everywhere. The carpets were dirty, the curtains were torn and the furniture was broken.

Twice a week Jane had to go shopping to buy food for herself and her dogs. People looked at her and shook their heads. 'What has happened to that woman?' they said. 'She doesn't have to live with all those dogs in the house. She should keep them outside. Every day she looks more like a dog. She smells like a dog. She even barks** sometimes. She goes 'woof, woof.'

Jane heard these comments from the people in her town and began to worry. Was her behaviour changing? Was she changing into a dog? I mustn't let myself go to the dogs**! I must look after myself! She made up her mind to go a see the doctor.

The next day, Jane went to see her local doctor.

'Please, Miss Barker,' said the doctor. 'What seems to be the problem?'

'Well,' answered Jane. 'It's this. People think I act like a dog. Am I changing into one? What should I do?'

'That's silly, Miss Barker!' said the doctor. 'You shouldn't worry about that! Come and sit on this sofa and we'll talk about it.'

'Oh, doctor!' said Jane nervously. 'I mustn't sit on the sofa. I'm not allowed!'

*A kennel is a small house that dogs sleep in at night if they live in a garden.
**The expression go to the dogs is not B1 vocabulary! It's an idiomatic phrase which means to get in a very bad state, get in a bad way.
***To bark - the loud sound made by a dog.

Exercises on must and have to...

Exercises on should and ought to...