Have to with 得 (děi)

Structure Subject + 得 + Verb

The character 得, read děi, is a modal verb: "have to, must": 我得走了 = "I have to go". It’s colloquial and strong (real necessity). NOTE: the same character 得, read "de", is the complement particle (说得好). The negative of this obligation is NOT 不得, but 不用 ("don’t need to").

Examples

我wǒ得děi走zǒu了le。
I have to go.
你nǐ得děi多duō休xiū息xi。
You have to rest more.
学xué中zhōng文wén得děi多duō练liàn习xí。
To learn Chinese you have to practise a lot.

Levels are indicative: they follow the standard Chinese Grammar Wiki (AllSet Learning) progression, not an official HSK 3.0 mapping. We never assign levels by eye.

This point and the other 370, with audio on every example, inside Wanyu.