". . . while I trained"

[shootingstar]

(William is trained at the Thames embalming company. It's the first day and he gets acquainted with his classmates. Ray is one of them)

Ray pulls his mouth down and hunches his shoulders. 'Car mechanics are ten-a-penny there - and badly paid. The funeral home said there'd be a job waiting for me if I qualified here and they'd cover my rent while I trained.' He shrugs again. 'Didn't seem a bad idea - a year in London, with a job at the end.'

I think the bold text has to be "while I am trained", right? If not, please tell me its meaning and reason. If so, please tell me why "am" is being omitted.

(From A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe, Part III Family Business, chapter 33)

 

[5jj]

I think the bold text has to be " while I am trained", right? If not, please tell me its meaning and reason. If so, please tell me why "am" is omitted.

I trained = I undertook training.
I was trained - Somebody trained me.

Both are possible. The first is probably more common.

 

[shootingstar]

Thank you, But why past simple or past participle?

 

[5jj]

The funeral home said there'd be a job waiting for me if I qualified here and they'd cover my rent while I trained.'

The funeral home said "There will be a job waiting for you if you qualify here and we will cover your rent while you train".

The words you quoted are a reported-speech rendering of the direct speech I gave above. Present tenses are backshifted to past tenses.

 

[emsr2d2]

William is trained at the Thames embalming company.

This should be either:
William is being trained at ...
William is training at ...

It's the first day and he gets acquainted with his classmates.

This should be "... he's getting acquainted with ...".

 

[shootingstar]

The funeral home said "There will be a job waiting for you if you qualify here and we will cover your rent while you train".

The words you quoted are a reported-speech rendering of the direct speech I gave above. Present tenses are backshifted to past tenses.

Yes, thank you very much indeed. I understand now.

 

[shootingstar]

This should be either:
William is being trained at ...
William is training at ...


This should be "... he's getting acquainted with ...".

Thank you. Can't I take my preliminary words to be a kind of summary or review? I have learned we often use the present simple to describe a serious of events or actions in summaries of stories or reviews; e.g. (talking about the series of events in a novel): Alex doesn't ring back at midnight . . . she waits till the morning to ring, and they get annoyed with Liz when she goes on . . . they know she's got plenty of money by their standards . . . If my preliminary words in parenthesis weren't a summary I'd have used the present continuous to communicate that these events are happening now. So I'm somewhat confused now.

 

[emsr2d2]

The historical present is frequently used in prose. However, I still prefer the use of the present continuous in your opening - I'd say it's a form of the historical present. "William's training at ...", "William's being trained at ..." and "he's getting acquainted with" can all be used in your context to refer to the past.