Does German have the "must we not" formation?

Question

If I say, in English, “Must we not speak German?”, I will be understood as asking whether it is true that we must speak German. It’s a strange phrase, as it means the opposite of the literal interpretation — if the reply is “Yes”, then I know that I need to be speaking German.

But if I was to say “Müssen wir nicht Deutsch sprechen?”, would a German interpret it the same way? Or would they think I was asking whether I must not speak German?

This could also be phrased “Must not we speak German?”, which is more common (albeit usually contracted to musn’t), but I’m fairly sure in German you can’t put nicht between the verb and the target (“müssen nicht wir …”), is that right? What is the correct way of saying this?

Answer 1

In your German version, there are subtle differences in meaning than in your English version.

Must we not speak German?

I understand the meaning as: is it not enforced or encouraged that we speak German? Maybe: we are not speaking German at the moment, but I thought we had to?

Müssen wir nicht Deutsch sprechen?

I understand this, which is by the way flawless German, roughly the same as your English version, but more "broad". The "enforcing to speak German" part is a bit lacking. So, basically, yes, your translation as as good as it gets, though I feel that a German native speaker might add other words in the sentence to make the meaning clearer:

Müssten wir nicht Deutsch sprechen?

Müssen wir nicht eigentlich Deutsch sprechen?

Müssen wir auf der Reise nicht Deutsch sprechen?

And so on …

Answer 2

The sentence is understood the same way in German. And you’re right that you cannot move the nicht in the second position.

Same is true if you replace must/müssen with should/sollten.

Shouldn’t we speak German? ⇒ Sollten wir nicht Deutsch sprechen?

On a side note, be aware that “must not” usually is translated as “nicht dürfen.”

You must not enter the site. ⇒ Sie dürfen das Grundstück nicht betreten.
You must not speak German. ⇒ Sie dürfen nicht Deutsch sprechen.

Answer 3

If you ask

Müssen wir nicht Deutsch sprechen?

then it will be understood that you thought that the German is to be spoken, but for some reason you are not sure or realise that you were wrong, and you wish to clarify. Or maybe you want to remind someone politely that German should be spoken.

The answer

Nein.

will be understood to indicate that it is not necessary to speak German. However, the answer to indicate that German is indeed to be spoken would generally not be “ja”, but

Doch.

Answer 4

It should be highlighted that even though the translation with must as müssen is correct, a native German speaker would never say it in this way as the German meaning of must is way more impolite than in English. It's more common in German to use würden, sollten, könnten, which imply "please". The German language uses extremely rarely the straightforward version of words because this is an impolite form of communication.

So a native German would say the following

Sollten wir nicht Englisch sprechen?

This means the same as must, because you don't expect a "No" as an answer.