How to say to in french

How do I say should in French?

should meaning ought to

Where you could replace should with ought to and it would have more or less the same meaning, then a common translation in French is to use the conditional tense of the verb devoir. As in English, it is followed by the infinitive. For example:

Note from the last example that you can say shouldn’t have by negating the verb in the usual way.

should meaning would

In formal, old-fashioned usage, should is sometimes used to mean would.

should introducing a condition

In formal or careful usage, English sometimes uses should to emphasise the speaker’s reaction to something rather than stating that something has taken place. (In a formal analysis, this is sometimes called a non-assertion.) For example:

In this sentence, the speaker chooses to say should decide rather than decided to emphasise their reaction to the decision rather than simply stating that the decision was made.

The construction ait décidé means roughly the same as a décidé = (has) decided, but ait is the subjunctive form of avoir rather than the usual present tense form that you’d use to form the perfect tense.

See also

How to translate would into French
What is the subjunctive?

French grammar index
French-English dictionary
English-French dictionary