Past future tense

Question

What tense is used to describe the future with respect to a point in the past? For example, to translate "They told us that the car would be repaired within 24 hours", or "The situation seemed terrible, but in my heart I knew it would all turn out all right."

Answer 1

Here are my observations on this interesting question: both examples have two clauses, joined by a conjuction. The first cause in each example clearly is in the past. The first example "they told us" describes a defined event, so it should be in the preterite "nos dijeron que". In the second example "the situation seemed terrible", my take is that this describes the scenario, and should use the imperfect. "La situación parecía terrible"

I think the confusion is in the second clause, and the use of "would". I'll go out on a limb and say that this is an impersonal use of the conditional. "They told us that the car would be repaired within 24 hours" is "Nos dijeron que el carro se repararía dentro de 24 horas."

With the same logic, the second example would be "La situación parecía terrible, pero en mi corazón sabía que se resultaría bueno."

I'm sure more knowelgeable folks will chime in. I hope I'm not too far afield on this.