Question about au cas où

StupefaiteC1Kwiziq community member

Question about au cas où

Hello, today while watching the news I picked up the sentence:

on a isolé les murs au cas où nous devions rester longtemps.

I wonder why "devrait" is not used in this case.

And can we use e.g. /dans le cas où + sentence/ instead of /au cas où + sentence/ ?

Merci.

Asked 2 years ago
CélineKwiziq team memberCorrect answer

Bonjour Stupefaite,

You are correct that it should be Le Conditionnel. However, 'devrait' can't be used because the subject of the verb is 'nous''devrait' is the Conditionnel form for 'il-elle-on' (= he-she-we/one - third person of the singular).

So it should be "au cas où nous devions devrions rester longtemps".

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

StupefaiteC1Kwiziq community member

Yes, having *on* is the 1st part of the sentence, I instinctively sticked to it in the following part. Anyway I meant a conditional form of devoir. Thanks for your answer, Celine. It's clear now.

CherylC1Kwiziq community member

I think it was probably devrions because you must use the conditional with au cas ou (sorry I can't work out how to put the accent on 'ou')

Question about au cas où

Hello, today while watching the news I picked up the sentence:

on a isolé les murs au cas où nous devions rester longtemps.

I wonder why "devrait" is not used in this case.

And can we use e.g. /dans le cas où + sentence/ instead of /au cas où + sentence/ ?

Merci.

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