Hoeft

Hoeft is the present-tense form of the Dutch verb hoeven, which means to have to, must, or need to. It is used to express obligation or necessity in a more contextual or sometimes less forceful sense than hoeven’s related form moeten. The standard present-tense conjugation is: ik hoef, jij hoeft, hij/zij/het hoeft, wij hoeven, jullie hoeven, zij hoeven. In practice, the form hoeft occurs for both the second-person singular (jij hoeft) and the third-person singular (hij/zij/het hoeft).

The verb verliekt a distinction between external obligation and practical necessity. It is common in everyday speech to say things like “Je hoeft hier niet te komen” (You don’t have to come here) or “Zij hoeft morgen niet te werken” (She doesn’t have to work tomorrow). When there is no negation, the sense can still reflect a recommended or convenient course of action rather than a hard rule. The infinitive that follows hoeven is introduced with te, as in “Je hoeft hier niet te blijven” or “Hij hoeft dit niet te doen.”

Etymology and cognates: hoeven originates in the Germanic family of languages and is cognate with German sollen, which likewise expresses obligation. The general sense of obligation or necessity connected to hoeven is shared across related languages, though each language encodes the nuance in its own way.

Related forms include the past tense hoefde and the past participle gehoeven. These forms are used to describe actions that were not required in the past or to express a conditional or hypothetical necessity, as in “Ik heb het niet hoeven doen.” The word “hoeft” itself is widely used across Dutch dialects and remains a common component of everyday modal expression.