I was practicing writing sentences and tried to write the following in Japanese:
I heard he escaped from the island.
I originally came up with
彼が島から逃げるのを聞いたそうです。
But then I was corrected by 2 different native speakers. Their changes are in bold.
Person A:
彼が島から逃げるのを聞きました。
Person B:
彼が島から逃げたと聞きました。
When I read Person A's correction I read it as
I literally heard (as in noises) him escape from the island.
I think Person B's correction is more in line with what I meant and I read it as
I heard (from someone else) he escaped from the island.
Assuming I'm right about the above, I don't understand why と was used instead of を in the 聞きました part.
Now I'm wondering
- Why was this done or when should I use と over を with 聞く?
- When nominalizing, do verbs have to stay in their "pure" dictionary form or can I change the tense? Could I write the following or is this grammatically incorrect? Does it mean the same thing as Person B's correction?
彼が島から逃げたのを聞きました。