Il faut régulièrement or Vous devez régulièrement?

Teaching on LingQ Forum
1

Can any one help with this?

I am currently learning French and came across the following sentence in one of my lessons.

Il faut régulièrement réviser vos nouveaux mots et vos nouvelles phrases

Google provides the following translation into English.

It should regularly review your new words and your new sentences.

This doesn’t make sense since the word Il (i.e. it) seems incorrect in this context.
Shouldn’t the original French phrase be something like

Vous devez régulièrement réviser vos nouveaux mots et vos nouvelles phrases

Which translates to:

You must review your new words and your new sentences

2

il faut: one must (impersonal form and only exists in 3rd person singular) and somewhat used as a strict general condition: In order to live, one must breathe! Pour vivre, il faut respirer! (one could also say: on doit or vous devez respirer. )
In order to learn vocabulary one must regularly repeat new words. Pour apprendre des vocabulaires, if faut reviser des mots nouveaux.

Vous devez: formal or plural: you must - personal form

for differences between falloir and devoir see this link:

1 Like
3

Hi Katz_Katz.
Thank you for the prompt reply.
Your explanation has helped me to understand the meaning of the original French phrase now.
I fear that this is a this is a disadvantage with LingQ in that relying on dictionaries and google translate do not always produce an accurate translation.
I guess i may be worth while to get a French grammar book too!

4

Thanks Chat_Chat!
Nothing to add. you can use both “il faut” (impersonal) or " Vous devez" (personal form).
We use “Vous devez” either if you are talking to ONE specific person, or if you want to stress the fact that this duty is for YOU and you only.