Das ist zu machen, das hast du zu machen: obligation without a modal
CEFR B2 · part 2
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
Wenn ich das gewusst hätte: what would have happened and did notRegret and reproach, which is what this form is for. You build it with hätte or wäre…lassen: to leave, to have something done, to allow and to be doableOne verb with four distinct jobs, told apart by what sits next to it. Ich lasse den…eine Entscheidung treffen: the verb that lives inside the nounThe fixed noun-plus-verb pairs that replace a single verb, and are the hallmark of…What goes in front of the verb, and what changes when you move itThat the first slot in a German sentence is a decision, not an accident. Ich fahre…doch, mal, ja, eben: the words that do not translateThe particles that do not change what a sentence says but do change how it lands, which…Reading German aloud: ei, ie, z, v, w, chReading any German word aloud, knowing which letters sound different from how they are…The rule, in three lines
Two constructions that say what the modals say without using them, and they are everywhere in instructions and contracts. sein plus zu plus infinitive is PASSIVE and means «is to be» or «can be»: Das Formular ist auszufüllen. haben plus zu plus infinitive is ACTIVE and means «you have to»: Du hast das zu machen, and it sounds curt.
The usual slip. Reading Das ist zu machen as a future, or as «that is to make», and missing that it equals Das muss gemacht werden. And in writing, the register slip: haben plus zu is authoritarian and stings in an email to a colleague, where müssen belongs. The third is formal: with a separable verb the zu goes INSIDE the word, auszufüllen.
Why it catches you out. English has «this is to be done» and «you have to do it», both alive and both matching. The one thing to watch is the separable verb: ausfüllen becomes auszufüllen, with the zu tucked inside the word, which English never prepares you for.