先日,現代英語語法辞典(小西著・三省堂)で以下のような例文解説に出会った。
項目till, until, by, before内
-until VS beforeの解説部分より。
通例,untilは非完結表現に,beforeは完結表現に用いられる。
1. I waited for half an hour before [*until] she came.(彼女が来るまで30分待ちました)
2. Let’s wait for Kent until [*before] he comes.(ケントが来るまで待ちましょう)
非完結表現,完結表現という文言が今ひとつ分かりにくかったのと,1.ではなぜuntilがダメなのかについてネイティブに解説を求めてみた。
In (2) we waited for an event that that we knew would happen - we waited until it happened.
In (1) we didn't know when it would happen, so we didn’t wait until it happened - we ended up waiting for half an hour before the event happened.
So, when we know that or when something will happen we use ‘until’ - so if we knew in advance that we’d be waiting for 30 minutes before she came, we could indeed say, "I waited half an hour until she came."
この観点を踏まえて,自作の例文で理解度を見ていただいた。紫がネイティブによるコメント。
We had to wait an hour in the train before [*until] the rail was fixed. <--- We usually don’t know how long it takes.
Yes. But if an employee came up to you and said, “It’ll take 30 minutes to fix the rail” and 30 minutes later it was fixed, then you waited 30 minutes until it was fixed.
We had to wait an hour until [*before] the next train came. <--- We had the time schedule when we missed our train.
Yes.