A volunteer helping in an intermediate-level ESL class reports that one day the teacher introduced “must” and “have to”, in contexts such as
- You must renew your visa = You have to renew your visa.
- You must have a ticket to get into the show = You have to have a ticket to get into the show.
In the volunteer’s discussion group this provoked two phenomena:
1. A heated discussion about “have to have”. Many students thought that was crazy and couldn’t figure out what it meant. They didn’t think “have to renew” was crazy, but the usage was unfamiliar to many of them.
2. Partway through the discussion in the subgroup moderated by the volunteer, a student suddenly Saw The Light: “They’re talking about GOTTA!” (You gotta renew your visa. You gotta have a ticket to get into the show.)
“Must” “have to” and “gotta” occur in three different registers of English. In America, in my experience, “must” is uncommon in speech and occurs mostly in formal writing. “Have to” (or “hafta”) is informal and widely used in both speech and writing. In street-conversation, “gotta” is the usual usage. It is uncommon in writing. “You gotta” would be spelled “You’ve got to”. (You do hear “you’ve gotta” as well as “you gotta”.)
New immigrants are exposed to English in the work place and on the street, not in the home and not usually in formal circumstances. The teacher should have given “gotta” as a third alternative way of saying “must” right from the start, since clearly that is the term most familiar to most of them. She should probably have also pointed out the pronunciation “hafta”, which is not obvious from the “have to” spelling unless you are a Sophisticated Amateur Linguist like me.
PS
I should add that negating these expressions introduces complications. “Must not” does not mean the same thing as “don’t have to”. “Don’t got” is considered wrong, and plenty of people who say “gotta” in conversation, including me, don’t say “don’t gotta”; I would say “don’t have to” or “don’t need to” instead.
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