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こんばんは！
I have a quick question relating to the “た-form+はず page. My instinct is that it’s just a typo, but I wanted to check since I’m the newb here. My issue is with the second sentence here:
すし を たべる はず だ Answer → I expect to eat sushi
すし を たべた はず だった Answer → I expected to eat sushi
ボビーさん は すし を たべた はず だ Answer → I expect Bobby ate sushi
So my question is, why isn’t what I wrote in bold there (eat), not “ate”? I would expect the sentence to translate to “I expected (I/he) ate sushi”. That doesn’t sound great in english (“I expected to have eaten sushi?”), the point is am I misunderstanding the grammer?
Thanks, sorry for the trouble on a small question like this!
Eric
AnonymousI think a better translation for the second sentence would be “I expected that I ate sushi.” Perhaps.
Let’s look at the context. The expectation is past tense, so that means we don’t expect anything presently. Now, the verb is also in past tense. So the action must have occurred already.
Therefore, I think すし を たべた はず だった means “I expected that I ate sushi,” carrying the context that you already did eat sushi. Thus, your expectation was indeed correct.
On the other hand, すし を たべる はず だった may mean “I expected that I would eat sushi,” in that you did expect to eat sushi, but you didn’t actually eat the sushi.
I’m not sure, maybe someone else can clarify this.
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