How Do You Say 'Supposed To'?

Question: How Do You Say 'Supposed To'?

Answer: How can I say "supposed to" in the sense of "I'm supposed to go to a wedding on Saturday"? I have just been saying Voy a una boda el sábado, but I want the inflection that I have in English.

I think Tengo que ir a una boda is probably what I'm looking for, but I wonder if there are other ways. I used to say He de ir ... but I was told that this was not the correct way of saying what I wanted to say. But the solution I was givien was something like Se supone que voy a ..., and I wasn't sure if this was right.

It's like when someone says, "What are you doing on Saturday?", and I say "I'm supposed to go to a wedding." I'm not really saying, "I have to go," I'm just saying that there is a wedding on Saturday that I may or may not go to but it is sort of expected of me to be there, so I'll probably go, but of course if you have a better suggestion, I'm open.

Answer 1: Tengo que ir is fine. Estoy supuesto/a a ir also works for me but I suspect that's because I grew up in NYC where English creeps into Spanish alot.

Se supone really means it is obvious that I have to go!

He de ir in South America is used like the future tense and sometimes as a kind of conditional tense.

Answer 2: There are various other choices; when you say in English, I'm supposed to go, but ...," there is a certain implication that you may not really want to or that the duty to go is not absolute.

You can say:

• Debo ir, I must go.
• Debería ir, pero... Here you express the fact that you are open to do something else.
• Tengo que ir is fairly strong and you could temper it by saying tendría que ir. In this way you convey the fact that you could do something else.

Note: This question and answer were adapted from a discussion on the bulletin board. This discussion also focused briefly on the role that intonation and context can play in how something is understood. To read the original discussion, go here.