# EN: Il souhaitait sûrement ne pas être seul



## frimous

Hello everyone,

I would like to translate the following sentence into English:
Il souhaitait sûrement ne pas être seul. (= he was alone but he did not want to be alone)

Would you say:
1) He must have wished he were not alone
or
2) He must have wished he had not been alone

Which sentence is grammatically correct?

I would tend to think only the second sentence is correct  since "must have wished" refers to a past event. Do you agree with me?

Thank you for your help


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## Toff28

I would simply say:
"He certainly wished he wasn't alone"


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## sound shift

Or "I'm sure he didn't like being alone."


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## moustic

He must have wished ... = il a dû souhaiter ...

If you want to keep close to the original -> _He surely didn't wish (want) to be alone._


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## Maître Capello

I way prefer moustic's suggestion, but note that _to wish_ should be followed by the subjunctive in English: _He certainly wished he *were*n't alone_.


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## lucas-sp

Maître Capello said:


> I way prefer moustic's suggestion, but note that _to wish_ should be followed by the subjunctive in English: _He certainly wished he *were*n't alone_.


Whoops - with "weren't," it becomes a present subjunctive: "He *wishes* he weren't alone."

Because the wish is in the past, we need a past subjunctive, or we can drop it in informal speech/writing. So either:

I bet he wished he *hadn't been* alone. _or
_I bet he wished he *wasn't* alone.


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## frimous

Thank you for your answers.
So if I want to keep my "he must have wished" (= past supposition) it must be followed by a past subjunctive. 
"he must have wished he had not been alone".
Am I right?


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## bloomiegirl

frimous said:


> Thank you for your answers.
> So if I want to keep my "he must have wished" (= past supposition) it must be followed by a past subjunctive.
> "he must have wished he had not been alone". [...]


But you're back to "il a dû souhaiter..." instead of "il souhaitait."

For "Il souhaitait sûrement ne pas être seul," I'm with toff28:   He surely wished he *wasn't* alone.


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## frimous

"Il a dû souhaiter" is similar to "il souhaitait sûrement" in French. Those two sentences have the same meaning. When we translate "must have + past participle" we usually use an adverb like "sûrement" in French.

My question is : What tense would you use after:
"he must have wished"?  
a) he were alone (present subjunctive)
b) he had been alone (past subjunctive)

To me, the second sentence is better than the first one since "must have wished" refers to a past event. Do you agree with me?


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## bloomiegirl

Yes of course.  
(though I cringe when I make such statements without at least a paragraph of context )


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## Sedulia

Maître Capello said:


> I way prefer moustic's suggestion, but note that _to wish_ should be followed by the subjunctive in English: _He certainly wished he *were*n't alone_. _He certainly wished he *had*n't *been* alone_.



I like Moustic's suggestion. You don't need to make it longer to convey the idea of the past. I would use "hadn't been alone" only if the meaning is that he is regretting the past, not the present. 

Also, "he were" _is_ subjunctive here so no need to correct it to "hadn't been." 

I would translate this just as Frimous did: "He must have wished he were not alone."


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## Maître Capello

I got confused by lucas-sp's comment but my initial suggestion was indeed correct. (I've restored my original post by the way.)

As mentioned in this wiki:


> The same forms are generally used independently of the tense or form of the verb _wish_:I wished you *were* there. (past tense for desired state at the time of wishing)​



In short:

present wish about the present: _He wish*es* (now) he *were*n't alone (now)_.
present wish about the past: _He wish*es* (now) he *had*n't *been* alone (yesterday)_.
past wish about the time of wishing: _He wish*ed* (yesterday) he *were*n't alone (yesterday)_.
past wish about an earlier time: _He wish*ed* (yesterday) he *had*n't *been* alone (2 days ago)_.



lucas-sp said:


> Whoops - with "weren't," it becomes a present subjunctive: "He *wishes* he weren't alone."
> 
> Because the wish is in the past, we need a past subjunctive, or we can drop it in informal speech/writing. So either:
> 
> I bet he wished he *hadn't been* alone. _or
> _I bet he wished he *wasn't* alone.


Note that you're confusing tenses.

present subjunctive = he be
past subjunctive = he were
pluperfect subjunctive = he had been


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## lucas-sp

Hm... I obviously agree with you, Maître.

But for whatever reason, "He wished he weren't alone" continues to sound bad to my ear. Perhaps this is because, in English as in French, the subjunctive tends to move forward in time, particularly with introductory verbs like "wishing" (since wishes tend to be about the future).

So you would say "I demand that you be silent!" in a present-tense situation, but "I just wish that you were a little more polite and that you would let others speak" in the same present-tense situation.


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## bloomiegirl

bloomiegirl said:


> [...]
> For "Il souhaitait sûrement ne pas être seul," I'm with toff28:   He surely wished he *wasn't* alone.



Perhaps I was focused on the first part of the sentence ("Il souhaitait sûrement"), but I have to concede that my use of the subjunctive (or should I say lack thereof) is a bit conversational. (ahem, ahem)

Sorry folks.


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## lucas-sp

bloomiegirl said:


> Perhaps I was focused on the first part of the sentence ("Il souhaitait sûrement"), but I have to concede that my use of the subjunctive (or should I say lack thereof) is a bit conversational. (ahem, ahem)
> 
> Sorry folks.


Still, on the whole I prefer the sentence with "wasn't." It seems economical and avoids all the issues about the subjunctive... which will in turn depend on whether you're speaking BE or AE etc. etc.


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## trastu

lucas-sp said:


> But for whatever reason, "He wished he weren't alone" continues to sound bad to my ear.



I must say that I have to agree wholeheartedly with this.  I have no idea why, but "He wished he weren't alone" sounds horrendous to me.  I would say without any hesitation whatsoever "He wished he wasn't alone".


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