I'm having a hard time distinguishing words in this sentence. Rikaichan says "なければなりません" is a word meaning you need to do something. But smart.fm broke up the sentence differently, so I need help from someone who knows.


私用で出かけなければなりません。



Thanks again for any help.

How did smart.fm break it up?

verb+なければなりません means that you have to/need to do the verb.

(Because it's a composite of なければ + なりません that might have confused smart.fm?)

なければなりません is ない (negative) + ば (conditional) + なりません (must not)
If it's not x, it must not be.. which is Japanese for have to, should, must.

Smart.fm had it split like this.

しよう で でかけなければ なりません

I understand now, thanks to both of you.

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-b...3%E3%80%82