what does "Thought you were finished at 5?" in this conversation mean?
I read a dialog from some spoken English textbook. It goes like "Thought you were finished at 5?" "I was supposed to be".

Does it mean the latter person assumes he can get off on 5 pm and the former person challenge him on this assumption. The conversation is related to something at work.

Question

what does "Thought you were finished at 5?" in this conversation mean?
I read a dialog from some spoken English textbook. It goes like "Thought you were finished at 5?" "I was supposed to be".

Does it mean the latter person assumes he can get off on 5 pm and the former person challenge him on this assumption. The conversation is related to something at work.

Answer

It means, your work is done/ you are off-duty at 5 am/pm.

Answer

"Thought you were finished at 5?" The person saying this sentence has assumed that the person he/she is talking to was going to get out off work by 5 o'clock. However, the person who was working was not able finnish his/hers work by 5 o'clock but had to stay at work. This sentence is not just a question but also a statement.

"I was supposed to be". This was then said by the person doing the work. In this sentence she/he explains that, yes the work was supposed to be done by 5 and that he/she had though that he/she would be able to leave work by then.However for some reason this not the case.

Hard to explain...hopefully this helped.

Answer

Aseer,
    Thanks.

But why do they use the passive tense in the two sentences? Why not say "Thought you can finish at 5?" and “I suppose it to be", which somehow seem more correct in syntax?

Ne manquez pas cette occasion d'apprendre une langue depuis chez vous. Découvrez notre sélection de professeurs de langues expérimentés et inscrivez-vous dès maintenant à votre premier cours !