From: Katie Wagnon (Fesco)
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 3:58 PM
To: Li Xiong
Subject: RE: I got a troublesome English question.

Ok, If you wanted to make a rhetorical question out of it, you could use "When you were young, did you ever dream that you would live in China?"  The first example you use is good, but not the 2nd and 3rd ones.

In terms of not using a rhetorical question, you could use the same format and say "Did you ever think you would be working in China when you were younger?"

There is not a lot of difference in the two grammatically, just a difference in the way you use it.

==

From: Li Xiong
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 3:47 PM
To: Katie Wagnon (Fesco)
Subject: RE: I got a troublesome English question.

Hi Katie,

Thanks for your detailed explanation. It means sense, but I am still wondering how to use question.

Suppose when you were young, you never thought you might go to China someday. And I also know that you did not have the plan to China when you were young. Now I want to use rhetorical question to ask you the question, and expected answer is “No”. So should I use:

When you were young, did you dream that you would go to China in future?

Or:

“When you were young, did you ever make a dream of working in China one day?”

“When you were young, could you have already dreamt then that you would be working in China in the future?”

If I do not know your plan and I do not want to use rhetorical question. I just want to use normal question and expect your real answer, any difference?

Thank you.

Li

From: Katie Wagnon (Fesco)
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 3:33 PM
To: Li Xiong
Subject: FW: I got a troublesome English question.

Hey Li!

See my notes inline =)

From: Li Xiong
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 2:57 PM
To: Katie Wagnon (Fesco)
Subject: I got a troublesome English question.

Hi Katie,

It has been a long time since our last 1:1. Do you remember me?

I got a troublesome English question.

Let me introduce the background. Yesterday I dreamed that I was back to middle school, and had to attend the disgusting math lesson. When I woke up, I realized there was no math lesson, and I had to handle cases as daily work.

Now I want to use English and question to explain the meaning, which is if I dreamed about my current job when I was in middle school. What should I say?

I am confused because when I was in middle school, I did not dream about my future. Should I use subjunctive since it never happened? My answer is:

“When I was in middle school, did I dream that I would handle cases in future?”   When you say something like "When I was in middle school, I dreamed of XXX.."  This is a way of saying, figuratively, not literally, that you have always wanted to do something.  For example, if I was going to write a story about my life in China, I would say, "When I was little, I always dreamed of traveling to exciting places."   The verb "dream" is used figuratively, because I did not actually go to bed at night and dream about China. 

After discussing with some friends, there are multiple answers by my friends:

I think what you want to say is ..."When I was in Middle School, I dreamed about working on cases some day."  Or, "When I was in Middle School, I would never imagined I would work on cases some day."  These both have different meanings.  The first one, means that this is something you have always wanted to do.  The second one implies that you never really thought this is what you would be doing with your life.  For instance, I could say, "When I was in Middle School, I never would have imagined I would live in China when I was older."

Does that make sense? However, none of those are in question format. 

“When in middle school, did I ever make a dream of working on cases one day?”

“When I was in middle school, could I have already dreamt then that I would be handling cases in the future?”

Which one should I use?

Thank you.