Weekend workout: Trouble on the way to holiday

Question

In that exercise there is one sentence whose English doesn't quite jibe with me:

-- The kids finished the ones we'd brought.

I don't think the use of past perfect tense here corresponds to what you would actually use in English. You'd be more likely to hear:

-- The kids finished the ones we brought.

But I realize that in French you would actually use le plus-que-parfait:

-- Les enfants ont finis celles que nous avions emportées.

As it stands, the English sounds a bit off but it gives a strong hint as to which tense to use in the French version. Still, I would use imperfect in English and, if necessary, provide a hint for the French.

What do the professionals think?

Accepted Answer

The past perfect sounds perfectly natural to me there, but I didn't look at the sentence before so it may be a contextual thing. However, your point about the tense hint stands either way - we should be clear which tense is expected, especially as different speakers of English can actually use different tenses depending on where they're from etc. Thanks for pointing this out!