Learn English – I invited the friend but I realised that I forgot/had forgotten to give him the address

past-perfectpast-tense

I invited my friend, but later l realised that l ……. to give him
the address.

  • A: forgot
  • B: had forgotten

I think that B is true but it's written in the book that A is the correct one.
Is that because the first action is the verb "give" not the verb "forget"? but I think that the verb to give didn't actually happen.
Can someone please explain why A is the correct answer?

Best Answer

I think it's because the act of inviting and the act of giving (or in this case, forgetting to give) the address would've happened at the same time, meaning you'd use the same verb tense.

Usually "had + past participle" is used when that action took place before the simple past verb action. As in:

I invited my friend, and before that I had eaten dinner.

But it doesn't quite make sense to have forgotten to give your friend the address before doing the inviting. Clearly you forgot to give the address at the same time you're doing the inviting. And, evidently, you continued to forget to give the address for every moment afterward.

So in a very wordy way, I think the idea is:

I invited my friend, but later I realised that, while I was in the process of inviting him, I forgot to give him the address.

However, if I didn't know "A" was the right answer, I would've put "B" myself. I think this is the reason for why "A" is right, though. You can't forget the address exclusively before doing the inviting. You forgot possibly before (depends on if the invite was premeditated or impromptu), certainly during the inviting, and definitely after the inviting.

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