＜見た＞と＜見てた＞

[meganliu]

"夢を見た"と"夢を見てた"はどう違いますか？

[AJBryant]

I don't know a better way to say it than,

mita = I saw
mitete = mite ite = I was seeing.

It's the difference between "I had a dream" and "I was having a dream".

[meganliu]

Well, can I ask what the difference between " I had a dream" and " I was having a dream"?

[furrykef]

AJBryant -- you mistyped "miteta" and "mite ita" as "mitete" and "mite ite". That confused me when I read your post the first time. (I'm not sure why, though; maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.)

meganliu -- The difference is generally how the statement fits into the topic of discussion. "I had a dream" is seen as a simple event. "I was having a dream" puts focus on the fact that the speaker's dream was in progress at the moment. Depending on the context, the two may occasionally be interchangeable with little difference in meaning, but generally they are not.

"I had a dream, and my alarm clock went off." -- These two phrases sound like unrelated ideas. Perhaps the dream was already over by the time the alarm went off. This sounds a bit awkward since the relationship isn't clear. It'd be more common to say something like, "I had a dream, and after that, my alarm clock went off."

"I was having a dream, and my alarm clock went off." -- Here, it's clear that the alarm clock interrupted the dream, so this phrasing is much more common.

"I had a dream, and my alarm clock went off during the dream." -- This is acceptable phrasing since, despite using "had" instead of "is having", it clearly shows the connection between the two phrases.

I have no idea if any of these nuances can be translated directly into Japanese, though.

- Kef

[meganliu]

よくわかりました。ありがとう。