O, now I see what you really wonder about! Well, I understand “devus” as “debería” in Spanish. We use this verbal form to express a moral compromise or obligation to fulfill something, IF a particular situation is given. Certainly it is a “softened” way to remind someone that he (she) must do something. All cultures have a moral code and we all supposedly know what should be done in every situation… For example: Your brother is sick in bed: “vi devus visiti, helpi, konsoli lin”. I think that the use of “devetas” is totally inappropriate because it expresses a lack of seriousness, a sort of “minor must”, something that could be done or neglected without to much thinking.

Viziti!

Mendacapote:O, now I see what you really wonder about! Well, I understand “devus” as “debería” in Spanish. We use this verbal form to express a moral compromise or obligation to fulfill something, IF a particular situation is given. Certainly it is a “softened” way to remind someone that he (she) must do something. All cultures have a moral code and we all supposedly know what should be done in every situation… For example: Your brother is sick in bed: “vi devus visiti, helpi, konsoli lin”. I think that the use of “devetas” is totally inappropriate because it expresses a lack of seriousness, a sort of “minor must”, something that could be done or neglected without to much thinking.

Interesting! But even in Spanish, "debo" is stronger than "deberia", isn't it?

I'm going to have to think about the "minor must" idea, and whether this corresponds to the English "should." But it does seem to me that English "should" covers quite a wide range of degrees of obligation, from very strong to fairly weak, depending on context.

Ahhh....maybe this is it: Perhaps it's not about the degree of obligation at all, but is about the relation between people. In many cases, it would be considered presumptuous for me to tell anyone what they must do, even if that's exactly what I mean. In such cases, the use of "should" doesn't really change the degree of obligation that I'm expressing, but simply makes it more polite. If something like this is happening in Esperanto, then "devetas" would indeed have the unintended effect of suggesting that it's not a very serious obligation.

For me, in french, "devi" means "devoir":
"je dois y aller/mi devas iri" --> means an obligation, "c'est un devoir", i have no choice. The action will be done in the future, very soon (else you add "next month...")
We have other sentences for this, as Todd wrote it :
"il faut que j'y aille", and rare "il me faut y aller" from the curious expression "il X faut aller à". They are more expressive.

"Mi devus iri/je devrais y aller" is the conditionnal, it means i have the choice, the possibility to go or not.

"Mi devos iri/je devrai y aller" is the future (with the same pronunciation as the conditionnal for the first personal pronoun), it means an obligation in the future, very soon or not (without precision). In this special case, only the context can do the difference between the conditionnal and the future.

I don't practice so much EOn to write "devi" with all french past times verbs, but there is still a difference choice/no choice.

For french people, "devus/devas" is very easy to understand, this verb is very very used. But we have difficulties when we learn english to make the difference between must/may/might and should/would.

In German there are two verbs "müssen/sollen" for obligation/possibility.

Erinja explained it remarkably well with a wonderful economy of words!

Todd: If your suggestion about a “minor must” or a “light should” ever becomes popular in Esperanto with the use of “deveti”… we´ll have to conjugate it devetus anyway!!!

I like it… as an ironical expression of no bond of obligation at all!!!

For example: Vi cxiuj devetus akcepti mian vidpunkton…

super-griek:Actually, I don't think 'il me faut aller' exists in French, I believe that would be 'je dois aller' or 'il faut que j'aille'.

Vraiment? I thought I remembered the "Il me faut X" from my high school French class, many years ago. It stuck in my mind, because it seemed like a handy way to avoid the dreaded subjunctive. Maybe I made it up. When I actually had to speak French, I favored the "devoir" form, for the same reason.

I also tend to believe that the infinitives in to make some things overly complicated. I'm not sure, but I think it would be easier for English people to learn verbs in other languages if they just abandoned the 'infinitive with to'-rule. That rule was made up by grammarians who tried to explain the English language in Latin .

And when they tried, they noticed the following structures:

I want to go.
Volo ire.

I have to go.
Debeo ire.

And so they tried to explain why English used 2 words where Latin just used an infinitive...

I'm sure you're right. I've occasionally seen the infinitive represented in English as simply "go" or whatever, without the "to," but it's unusual. Either way you do it, you get inconsistencies, because you can say "I like to travel" but you can't say "I enjoy to travel." Conceptually, they are the same, of course, but with "enjoy" you must use the gerund: "I enjoy traveling." With "like" you *may* use the gerund and say "I like traveling," but you can use the infinitive too, and you just have to remember that.

This is just the sort of madness that Esperanto rescues us from!