VOA日常语法2024--Talking about Your Dreams

Talking about Your Dreams

　　In an earlier Everyday Grammar, we talked about "Fast Car," a song about young people who had dreams of making their lives better. Then, we asked our readers and listeners to tell us about their own dreams.

　　In today's lesson, we will review two answers we received, both from people in their middle years of life, and we give some grammar advice.

　　Jairo's dream

　　First, we want to thank Jairo, a middle-aged¹ man who wrote to us. He said,

　　"Today everyday grammar topic is about dreams, how can I describe my dream? This is an interesting topic over all for people who already has certain age, like me; as well, the time is not longer for following an eternal² dream..."

　　Jairo used an interesting expression to tell us about his age. He said, "people who already has certain age." You might have heard this expression in sentences like:

　　A person of a certain age needs to be concerned about retirement³ funds.

　　Note that the verb "has" is not used, but the preposition "of" is used before "a certain age." As you can guess, this is a polite way to describe someone in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. It is often used to talk about women's age without saying how old they are. Sometimes it comes before criticism, so take care in using it.

　　Time is growing shorter

　　Jairo said, "the time is not longer for following an eternal dream." We suggest using, "the time is growing shorter" or "there is little time left." Jairo could say,

　　The time for me to follow my dream is growing shorter.

　　Jairo continues to tell us about what is now important to meeting his life goals.

　　"... for that reason I need to be focus on important things, indeed, buy a house, save money for my daughter's scholarship, save money for taking a vacations or save money to be prepare for my retirement time..."

　　In this statement, Jairo uses "be" before an infinitive⁴ verb form two times: "be focus" and "be prepare." We suggest using the adjective form in both:

　　I need to be focused on important things.

　　I need to save money to be prepared for my retirement.

　　Kaori's dreams

　　Next, we review a message from Kaori, who is a middle-aged woman in Japan. She begins by saying what she dreamed as a young person, using the expression we heard in the song, "Fast Car" – "to be someone."

　　"When I was young, I strongly believed I would be someone in the future. I wanted to be the first female Prime Minister in Japan or an executive⁵ of the big famous company."

　　Kaori did earn a job at a company, but then marriage and children and culture forced her to quit working. She says:

　　"However, I didn't become anyone...I stopped my job and gave up my carrier. Do I regret my decision and my life? No. Not at all.

　　From the remaining part of Kaori's message, we find she was a success at being a mother, as her two daughters are in college. And she gained a part-time job that helped to pay their school costs when they were younger. The corrections to her message that we suggest are the spelling of "career" and how to say you have quit a job. We can say, "I stopped working," or "I quit working." But Kaori could also say, "I changed jobs," because being a homemaker and mother, although unpaid⁶, is a full-time⁷ job. Kaori did all that while holding a part-time job.

　　Thinking of how her dream changed over time, Kaori writes:

　　My past dreams were only thinking, not real. I can say my own dreams have changed everytime. In the future, even if I become old, I hope to find new and enjoyable dreams at anytime.

　　Two words in this part cause grammatical⁸ issues: "everytime" and "anytime." "Every time" should be written as two separate words, but a better way to say this would be:

　　I can say my own dreams have changed over the years.

　　"Anytime" is an adverb, so it should not appear after the preposition "at." Instead, Kaori could say,

　　I hope to find new and enjoyable dreams anytime.

　　Or she could use a different expression:

　　I hope to find new and enjoyable dreams my whole life long.

　　Thank you, Kaori and Jairo, for writing to us and helping⁹ everyone to learn more about how we talk about our dreams. You both showed us that dreams can change over time as our lives become connected with those of others.

　　Words in This Story

　　certain – adj. definite or particular, but not named or specified¹⁰

　　polite –adj. showing good behavior and consideration for the needs of others

　　guess – v. to think or suppose

1 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

2 eternal   

adj.永久的，无休止的，永恒的，永不改变的

参考例句：

• Stop this eternal chatter!不要唠叨个不停！
• Rome has been called the Eternal City.罗马一向被称为不朽之城。

3 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

4 infinitive   

n.不定词；adj.不定词的

参考例句：

• The use of the split infinitive is now generally acceptable.分裂不定式的用法现在已被广泛接受。
• Modal verbs generally take the bare infinitive.情态动词通常用不带to的不定式。

5 executive   

adj.执行的，行政的；n.执行者，行政官，经理

参考例句：

• A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
• He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。

6 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

7 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

8 grammatical   

adj.语法的，符合语法规则的

参考例句：

• His composition is excellent except for some grammatical mistakes.他的作文写得很好，只有几处语法错误。
• He can barely form a grammatical sentence.他几乎造不出合乎语法的句子。

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 specified   

adj.特定的

参考例句：

• The architect specified oak for the wood trim. 那位建筑师指定用橡木做木饰条。
• It is generated by some specified means. 这是由某些未加说明的方法产生的。