この文章を同じ時制で終わらせますか。A man grows evil. His wife sends their son and daughter to live with different families. Later, the son meets an old knight; they travel to save a princess. The son...
a. discovered she's his sister.
b. finds she's his sister.
c. marries her.
日本語訳
Twitterより。物語を同じ時制で続ける問題です。男が悪の道へ進み、妻が息子と娘を別々の家族に預けます。後に息子は老騎士に出会い、二人で王女を救いに向かいます。「息子は……」に続く文を選んでください。選択肢には「彼女が妹だと気づいた」「彼女が妹だと気づく」「彼女と結婚する」があります。
When we tell a story, a joke, or what happened--we usually use the same tense (the time frame for the action and "be verbs")--until we can't any longer because, we must change it to express the past or future or the present continuous. This is especially true when telling the narrative of a novel, a movie or a proverb. I think the reason is--the story exists forever in our imagination, perhaps in our tradition; we will tell the story or joke or anecdote over and over. So in a sense, it doesn't happen only once; it's not "history", exactly--and even if it is, when we retell it and retell it, it is timeless.
By the way, today's tweet is a story most of us know--from a famous science fiction movie series. Do you recognize it?
CA
解答・解説の日本語訳
同じ時制を保つという条件なら、現在形の finds と marries が文法上は候補になります。ただし、物語の内容に合わない選択肢もあります。物語や冗談、小説や映画の筋を話すときは、必要がなければ同じ時制を続けるのが普通です。語り継ぐ物語は、話すたびに現在に生きているかのように描かれることがあります。この物語がどの有名な SF 映画シリーズか、思い当たりますか。