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Like : I never thought I would be intimidated by you. even though I can understand it ( I'm being intimidated by you or you intimidated me and I never thought about you intimidating me ). Would here is not subjunctive/conditional/ or past right?, so that's what we call Idiomatic english ''would'' here is just to complete the sentence? like here too ''I never thought you would do that''( you did something and I never thought about you doing that something).

I can't place would in any tense here.

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Compare:

  • I think I will never be any good at Tennis.
  • I thought I would never be any good at Tennis.

The first sentence describes the speaker's current feelings about the future. The second sentence describes the speaker's past feeling about the future.

When describing a past-thought about the future "will" changes to "would" (so we replace the incorrect "I never thought I will be..." with the correct "I never thought I would be..."

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  • Good good, so would here is not idiomatic but in the past (will-->would).
    – VeryBadAtEnglish
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 7:12
  • Does it also work for describing a past-thought about the present ? Because my sentences are about the present not the future.
    – VeryBadAtEnglish
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 7:14
  • @VeryBadAtEnglish Today is yesterday's future ;) Which is to say, that it does work, because it was the future when the thought occurred (the past-thought was about the future).
    – GLG
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 7:17
  • I see I hate these complicated things about tenses haha :P but since it works it' answers my question. Thanks GLG
    – VeryBadAtEnglish
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 7:28

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