Thread: we taught them how to sail the winds to go where the needed to go

Есть видео:



И есть транскрипт к нему.

В транскрипте на участке с 8 мин 59 сек по 09 мин 11 сек есть кое-что непонятное мне.

Приведу:
Here comes the crazy moment. What if, instead, we let the balloons drift and
we taught them how to sail the winds to go where the needed to go?

Меня смущает фраза the needed.

1) Может быть там не "the", а "they" должно быть?
2) Почему использовано "needed"? Зачем тут прошедшее время?

Originally Posted by Данный транскрипт на других языках

А вот и сумасшедшая идея: что, если вместо этого мы позволим шарам дрейфовать,
научив их навигации по ветрам, чтобы они перемещались куда им нужно?

Ahí llega el momento de la locura. ¿Y si, en cambio, dejamos que los globos vayan a
la deriva y les enseñamos a navegar vientos para ir adónde tienen que ir?

1) Определённо they там. Такие слова часто съедаются, так что ничего удивительного, что ты там услышал the.

2) Согласование времён. Taught и let в прошедшем времени как сослагательное наклонение, поэтому и they needed тоже к тому времени относиться, в итоге получается так: что let, taught and needed происходят как бы в одной временной плоскости. Ну а чтобы научить кого-то или что-то пойти куда ему нужно, нужно собственно знать, куда ему было нужно сначала. Но не думаю, что they need было бы ошибкой там, просто человек мыслящий на английском скорее всего к варианту с прошедшим временем был бы склонен.

Спасибо за быстрый ответ, iCake!

Транскрипт делался другими людьми. Я его скачивал с сайта, изучал.

Повторю сослагательное наклонение ...

Originally Posted by traven

Спасибо за быстрый ответ, iCake!

Транскрипт делался другими людьми. Я его скачивал с сайта, изучал.

Повторю сослагательное наклонение ...

Не за что. Повторять нужно именно согласование времён, а не сослагательное наклонение. Здесь вот такое дело:

She told us: "I am going to the library!"

She told us that she were going to the library

I thought you were a man! I knew he was ill. I thought you were friends. I didn't know where he was. Ну и т.д.

Если наш пример немного сократить для наглядности:

We taught the baloons how to sail where they needed to sail

I wanted to ask you what your beliefs are. - Это естественный способ на английском

I wanted to ask you: "What are your beliefs?" - Это немножко нестандартный, и чтобы было правильно, нужно произносить короткую остановку перед началом вопроса.

Различие в порядке не изменяется

Originally Posted by xXHoax

I wanted to ask you what your beliefs are. - Это естественный способ на английском

This is actually interesting to me as I think it's a bit different here than what we know of as "sequence of tenses' in English. To me it looks like as though you use "wanted" there, it still actually belongs to present time, you just state your intent to learn of what beliefs someone holds. More importantly you obviously still want to know what their beliefs are

On the other hand, if you talk about this as a past event, like you asked that question some time ago and now telling someone else that you asked somebody that question, then it'll be an example of the sequence of tenses and in that case you'd go with:

"I wanted to ask him/her/them etc what their beliefs were" regardless of whether that person still holds those beliefs or not.

I might be mistaken though so I'd like to know what a native thinks of this line of thinking.

I was focusing on the second half of the sentence, but now that I look at it, that "wanted" is a very strange one.

Sorting that bit out:

(Last week,) I wanted to ask you what your beliefs were (in the 90's) about...
(past wanting, past beliefs-- both may be over)
This is all standard, face-value.

OR

(Having now looked at it for the first time) I feel as though it is a "meek mood". I consider it more of a mood than a tense, but I don't think it occurs anywhere but present tense (while looking like the past tense). In some ways it's more like a tenseless passive construction.
It's as if the speaker is presenting the (in this case: ) wanting, as having been a past event in order to... Well, for some reason/ somehow add politeness... Perhaps the "distancing" from the act it used to mildly separate the speaker from their ~emotions~ (not sure if that's the best word for it). Perhaps separating from their own words and/or the conversation itself
For whatever reason, "I (right now) want to ask you what your beliefs are about..." has become too forward a phrasing.


(Hi,) I (just) wanted to ask you what your beliefs were about...
(meek-present wanting, meek-present beliefs)

*Putting in a word like "today" seems to snap the construction, possibly because one then notices how strange it is

"Excuse me! Sorry to bother you, I was just wondering if you wanted(would like) to see a movie with me some time."
Perhaps similar to -бы хотел- in Russian.

It's strange... Almost as if it really is a past tense that's just referring to twenty seconds ago. [for instance, just before the conversation started]

I've got it. It's about rejection of emotions. If you distance yourself from the wanting, then, if the person, say for instance, really doesn't want to answer any questions about their beliefs right now, then they won't have just stomped on your wanting. Compare:

-"I want to ask you what your beliefs are about..."
-"No." = deliberate negation of what the first person currently 'wants', as they said


-"I wanted to ask you what your beliefs were about..."
-"No." = only crushed a 'past' desire

This is why "just" so commonly goes with this construction, because the speaker is trying to minimize the scale of their wanting/question-asking as a whole, so that the possibility of rejection is easier on both the rejecter and rejected. Also why it shows up so much when asking out on dates, or impromptu public requests of strangers.