Mandarin · Chapter 5 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Modals and intent
Prescribed by the AQA specification.
The short version
The opposite of must is 不用 (bú yòng), not 不必须 (bú bì xū)
必须 (bì xū) does not negate the way English 'must' does. Its negative is 不用 (bú yòng) or 不必 (bú bì), meaning 'you don't need to' rather than 'you must not'. For an actual prohibition you want 不能 (bù néng) or 别 (bié). 不必须 (bú bì xū) is ungrammatical and it catches everyone at least once.
你不用来。 Nǐ bú yòng lái.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
Lesson 8 of 13 in this chapter