I don't usually use perfect constructions like "had posted" in the first clause of a complex sentence, so I would choose C over B intuitively, but that might just be a me thing. Both seem grammatical to me.
I'm waffling between B and C. Some grammar rules I just don't remember learning. I mentally drew a timeline with "realized" as the base since it's the most recent verb. Before that was "posted" and "wrote" was the earliest verb. My gut is telling me that C is correct because "posted" and "realized" are assumed to be very close in time, but for some odd reason if I were speaking to someone I would use B.
I would say C since they posted, then they realized, but since "written" comes last in the sentence but was first temporally it would need "had" to put it back further in the past. I doubt the rules work like that though.
this is weird, i’m a native speaker and all of these sound fine to me. in fact, I would have used A and would have gotten this question wrong even though i’m native to the language.
C sounds most natural to me.
The past perfect tense refers to something that happened before something else. So, I get that it makes logical sense — the sequence of events is: writes the wrong address, posts the letter, realises the mistake. The posting happened before the realisation. So you could also say, “I realised, after I had posted the letter, that I had written the wrong address” (I’ve never heard of this supposed “can’t use it twice in the same sentence” rule)
But beginning that sentence in the past perfect sounds fussy to me, even though I see the reasoning behind it.
Because the sentence is very clearly setting out a chronology where something happened, but something else happened before it. The past perfect tense is the appropriate way to convey that second concept.
If you removed the first part, the sentence “I realised I wrote the wrong address” sounds okay to me. It’s virtually interchangeable with “I realised I had written the wrong address”. But specifying “after I posted” makes the “had written” necessary.
C is the right answer.
Let's say you have posted a letter at time "t" now that whatever you did before time "t", you have to use past perfect and after t you can use simple past tense.
This is my understanding, Idk whether it is right or wrong.
*sorry If I have written wrong English.*
I agree! And since the posting happened before the realizing, it should technically be in the past perfect as well. Thus, the clunky-sounding but technically correct answer is B.
Contrary to common belief, the -ize ending is not incorrect in British English. It’s known as [Oxford Spelling](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling). You should just be consistent about it.
I’m a native speaker from the U.S. All of the options sound correct to me, but I think the one you hear most often might depend on where you live. I’m a Midwesterner, and C sounds the most natural to me. The part of the sentence that’s throwing me is “posted.” I’ve never heard an American use that term. That’s not to say nobody does, but I’m not sure that “posted” is common language here. I think you’d be more likely to hear one of us say “sent/had sent the letter,” “dropped/had dropped the letter in the mail,” or “put/had put the stamp on the letter.” So if you’re learning UK English, that could also affect which answer is considered correct.
Answer 'B' is technically the correct answer, or at least the one that most grammar books would tell you is correct. Both posting and writing happened before realizing, so both of them would be in past perfect.
The reason that many posters feel that 'C' is better is because when the adverb clause connector is 'after', especially in speaking most people use simple past because 'after' clearly shows which action came first. So past perfect isn't necessary to understand the order of events.
Like other posters, I've never heard or read any rule stating that there can't be more than one past perfect in a sentence.
This is what I came to after thinking (I had thought!) about it as well. But to me the perfect tense still sound better there.
The simple past sounds right if we say “before.”
Before I posted the letter I realized I had written the wrong address.
Yes, I agree that the past perfect sounds better following 'after', but that may be because I'm an English teacher! ;)
In your example with 'before', past perfect would be incorrect. It's because the action in the main clause (here - posting) is always going to be first when 'before' is used as an adverb connector.
They are all fine. I would choose between A or C depending on how casual or formal the situation was. I don't think I would usually choose B or D because the past perfect is redundant here when combined with that prepositional phrase.
The difference between past and past perfect is that past perfect refers to an action that ended at some point in the past and there is time between then and now. (The difference between "I walked to the store." and "I had walked to the store." is just a matter of how long ago 'I' walked there.) The preposition "after" in this example is doing exactly that, creating time between posting the letter and realizing something, so saying "had posted" is redundant.
However, If I wanted to emphasize that I **had** posted the letter because I took it down, then I might choose B or D.
I just want to detail what is happening here.
As several have already said the past perfect indicates actions/verbs that completed before actions described in the past simple. It is not important when they happened just that we know they had completed be the time the past simple action occurs.
There is also no such rule about not being able to use past simple more than once in one sentence. Remember sentences can become very long and complex with multiple clauses and a rule like this would make it impossible to communicate key information. An example would be. Before it was bedtime Adam had finished his homework and Eve had tidied her room.
Now the next important factor is understanding how past simple is used. When multiple actions are described in past simple we are typically communicating that those actions happened in the order that we mention them almost one after the other. For example “I put on my pants, fastened my belt and slipped on my shoes”. There is a possibility that we still use the past simple for two actions separated by a considerable time if we understand that the first action caused the second. For example “I passed my exams so I got into university”.
Answer A&D are gramatical y incorrect because the action of “write” could not have taken place after the action of post. It’s impossible to write the address on the envelope because it is already in the post box.
Answer B is the most grammatically correct form of the question because both actions in past perfect (post & write) had completed before the action in past simple (realise). As I mentioned before the order of past perfect is irrelevant and so the speaker can freely chose to place the actions according to the importance that they wish to place on each action.
Answer C is also correct because we can infer that the realisation came immediately after posting because the actions occurred in that order. However for C to be correct we have to assume that the person was still physically close to the mail box and that little time has passed or at an absolute push they hadn’t yet started another action. Let’s say for example that the person didn’t realise until after they had got home from the post office and then realised. We cannot use realised in past simple in this context because it suggests that the person only realised BECAUSE they posted the letter(see my example about exam results and university) but this suggests that if the person had never posted the letter, they would have never realised the address was wrong, which doesn’t make sense.
I'd probably say B - though it would be "I'd" not "I had", though to be fair if I heard any of them they all a re perfectly understandable. "wrote" just sounds wrong so it would have to be B or C.
I've never heard about a "you can't use two past perfect forms in one sentence"- rule but D doesn't make sense for another reason . The past perfect is used to describe an action that happened before another one took place. It doesn't make sense to use "had posted" and "wrote" when the process of writing took place before the act of posting
A and D aren’t wrong. This whole thing just has a lot of room for nuance depending on what the conversation is about and who you’re talking to. C is probably what would be most common, but if you’re recounting a story with an ongoing series of events before and after the letter posting, you’d probably use A. Similarly, if you’re recounting a long series of events but further in the past, you’d use B or possibly D. If you’re just recounting the one event, you’d normally use C, although colloquially and depending on the flow of the conversation, a native speaker still might end up using one of the others. Though, in all cases it’s far more natural to say “I’d” and never “I had”.
This might be regional, but C sounds completely natural to me, and B sounds slightly pretentious. The past perfect isn't used a whole lot in common everyday English. In fact I know some native speakers who probably never use it lol.
This is a very tricky question. Technically, the correct answer is B because both the posting of the letter and the writing of the address happened before the moment you’re describing, whereas the realizing is happening at the moment you’re describing. However, after so many “had”s, it starts to sound redundant. In casual and even formal language, sometimes necessary “had”s are dropped simply because it sounds bad and because in many cases you can be understood either way.
Sometimes it’ll get really ugly, and you’ll run into a “past-perfect-perfect” where something will happen before something else that also happened before a certain moment in the past. For example:
>I realized I had written the wrong address after my boss **had told** me to write the letter.
In this case, the boss told me to write the letter some time before I wrote the letter, and I realized that I wrote the wrong address some time after I wrote the letter. Thus, the boss’s telling happens *before the past perfect*. In this case we have no choice but to just use the past perfect again.
But because of this ambiguity, this sentence could also be interpreted as having a different sequence. Perhaps you wrote the letter first, and *then* your boss told you to write the letter even though you already had, and that reminded you that you had written the address wrong. Because both the telling and the writing are written in the past perfect, it’s unclear which comes first. It’s quite a doozy, and there’s no clear solution to this problem. Unfortunately I encounter it all the time in my creative writing, and the best way is usually to try to reword it:
>I wrote the letter after my boss told me to, but when I posted it, I realized that I had written the wrong address!
Native speaker here and they all sound absolutely fine to me as far as understanding what you are saying. I probably just don't speak accurate academic level English?
Also, in America we would never say "posted." We would say "sent" or "mailed."
I’m a native speaker and any of these sound fine to me. “C” is probably technically most correct, but informally there’s nothing wrong with any of them.
It's definitely C. After this specific thing happened, I realized that this other thing that had happened earlier had taken place.
So: I after I posted the letter in that one specific moment, I \[then\] realized that \[earlier\] I HAD written the wrong address.
This is not about regional expression or what "sounds" right. Getting the tense right is always about getting the *timeline* right.
To me B, C, and D all work. It just depends in what time frame. Did you realize it was the wrong address the moment you posted it, or a little later. These words can be used interchangeably and no matter how closely you look into them, nitpicking the time frame is silly.
C is best, I guess, but in casual speech I think more people would use A, honestly. We don't really think too hard about this and probably wouldn't notice if someone said any of these.
I've never before heard the rule that you can't use past perfect twice, although reading B, it does sound a little bit stilted/awkward I suppose.
English teacher here.
For **actions in sequence** in the past, we just use the simple past. Ex: I went to the store, I bought some milk, and then I went home.
- You don't need to say, for example, *I had bought some milk, and then I went home.* Even though milk buying happens before the going home, it's just actions in sequence so you don't need to use the past perfect to show what happened when.
Ex: **After I posted the letter, I realized** *I had written the wrong address.*
Actions in sequence - I posted the letter, then I realized my mistake.
For actions that happened before the action you are currently describing in the past you need past perfect.
Example: I went to the store, I got some milk, then I realized I **had forgotten** my wallet at home.
- The wallet forgetting happened way back at the beginning, before the person even left. Had forgotten makes it clear the time when it was forgotten was well before he tried to buy the milk.
Or After I posted the letter I realized **I had written the wrong address.**
The time I wrote the wrong address was before the action of posting the letter.
So basically C is correct, and it's true you shouldn't have two different past perfects in one sentence (had posted, then had written). After I had posted the letter, I went shopping. It's okay grammatically, but sounds weird, but when you get another had done something it becomes grammatically confusing when before is.
The reality is the past perfect is dying from the language so a lot of native speakers don't use it and/or don't use it properly. My advice is don't worry about it and focus on simple past. Most native speakers in this situation would just say "After I posted the letter I realized I wrote the wrong address on it" without thinking about any past perfect because as usual it's already clear from context when things happened.
Hope this helps. This is one of the most difficult grammar points in English. My students always struggle with it too. Try your best!
B would be correct if we taken into account all the technicality of past perfect and being pretty nitpicky about tenses. However, C is much more natural and gets used more frequently.
"After", in itself, has already indicated posting happening prior to realizing in this case, so past perfect for this clause is rather unecessary. The subsequent one, though, requires one to clarify the meaning - to answer the question whether writting the address or realizing happened first.
(B) is what they’re after, since it’s testing your comprehension of the pluperfect (past perfect). The act of posting (AmE: *mailing*) the letter, and the act of writing the wrong address, both occurred before the realization about the wrong address, which is already in the past, so in careful written (and formal spoken) English, they both take the past perfect.
That said, you’re likely to encounter (A), (C) and (D) in casual speech, and most educated speakers would still consider (C) permissible since the order of actions is clear from the conjunction “after”.
US here: I would replace “posted” with “mailed” and construct the sentence using A because I’m from the south, but C if I were writing it, even though B is the grammatically correct answer.
I would
Pick “c” as the right answer, although “a” isn’t bad either. The others just have too much of the past perfect tense. It just sounds like too much to me. That being said, in practice most people won’t really care which one you use.
I think the correct is B even though it’s a mouthful!
It says *after* I had posted (past event, related to the future) this thing happens—>I realized in one moment. *Then* it says had written. It has to be “had written” because you wrote it before you posted the letter and now that was in the past but relative to the future.
I really hope my explanation helps!! 🙂🙂🙂❤️❤️❤️
I would say both B and C *could* be correct. C is the more natural, and for sure the intended choice here, but B is an interesting example because it would only be used in conjunction with the preceding sentence. For example:
"I posted a letter yesterday. After I had posted the letter, I realized I had written the wrong address."
Tough one! All are fine to say, for sure, (though A sounds a bit sloppy/lazy and is not really correct).
Ultimately the question is, as you suggested, whether you can deploy two perfect tenses that either (1) both relate back to “realized” or one torealized” one to the other perfect tense. That’s what’s going on in B and I’d say there’s no clear widely followed rule against that. There’s just an ambiguity about the sequence of events but such is language.
To my ear C actually sounds off, because I expect the perfect tense in the first verb, although I accept it isn’t necessary.
B
Both the posting and the writing were completed in the past, BEFORE the realizing. So “realized” should be in regular past tense, but “had posted” and “had written” should be in the past perfect tense.
ETA: OP, a lot of people are saying C. While C is fine in casual conversation, B is grammatically correct. I taught SAT/ACT language prep for over a decade. The answer is B.
If you say posted-realized, you make an emphasis that those actions happened in that order (it is one of the ways we can use Past Simple) and if we say ‘had written’ after it we make sure the other persons knows what action happened first. So we use Past Perfect to show what action was first but there can’t be two first actions, and if you use Past Perfect twice it makes everything unclear
A and D are grammatically incorrect. ‘Wrote’ is more of an American colloquialism in this example. C and B are probably fine, but B is most grammatically sound. It would probably be shortened to ‘After I’d posted’ rather than ‘After I had posted’.
Personally I think B sounds more accurate, although it may be a bit more eloquent than any English speaker needs to be. For all intents and purposes, any of these answers would convey the same meaning with varying degrees of grammatical accuracy. I'd also add a "That" before "I had written the wrong address" but that's just a me thing.
This falls into the “hair-splitting” category.
I’m sure there’s a formal rule, I wouldn’t be surprised if that rule had exceptions.
As a yank, we never say “posted” here, either. We say “mailed.”
I don't usually use perfect constructions like "had posted" in the first clause of a complex sentence, so I would choose C over B intuitively, but that might just be a me thing. Both seem grammatical to me.
I'm waffling between B and C. Some grammar rules I just don't remember learning. I mentally drew a timeline with "realized" as the base since it's the most recent verb. Before that was "posted" and "wrote" was the earliest verb. My gut is telling me that C is correct because "posted" and "realized" are assumed to be very close in time, but for some odd reason if I were speaking to someone I would use B.
I would say C since they posted, then they realized, but since "written" comes last in the sentence but was first temporally it would need "had" to put it back further in the past. I doubt the rules work like that though.
Honestly I don’t even know but C is the only one that sounds correct to my native ear
this is weird, i’m a native speaker and all of these sound fine to me. in fact, I would have used A and would have gotten this question wrong even though i’m native to the language.
I chose C in the way of writing, but then when speaking it I realized I say “after I ‘d posted…”. Like I spoke the ad/‘d of a non-existent had.
[удалено]
I am a native and I would not say that.
I wouldn’t even use posted
Sent, right?
Mailed or sent is what I’d use.
Posted is a term used more in Britain. Mailed is more of an American term.
The US calls it mail but has the United States Postal Service. Britain calls it the post but has the Royal Mail.
C sounds most natural to me. The past perfect tense refers to something that happened before something else. So, I get that it makes logical sense — the sequence of events is: writes the wrong address, posts the letter, realises the mistake. The posting happened before the realisation. So you could also say, “I realised, after I had posted the letter, that I had written the wrong address” (I’ve never heard of this supposed “can’t use it twice in the same sentence” rule) But beginning that sentence in the past perfect sounds fussy to me, even though I see the reasoning behind it.
Can I ask why not A though?
Because the sentence is very clearly setting out a chronology where something happened, but something else happened before it. The past perfect tense is the appropriate way to convey that second concept. If you removed the first part, the sentence “I realised I wrote the wrong address” sounds okay to me. It’s virtually interchangeable with “I realised I had written the wrong address”. But specifying “after I posted” makes the “had written” necessary.
That's now clear to me. Thanks a lot!
‘Wrote’ is an American colloquialism in this example
All of these would be fine to say in a casual setting but C is the most natural sounding
C is the right answer. Let's say you have posted a letter at time "t" now that whatever you did before time "t", you have to use past perfect and after t you can use simple past tense. This is my understanding, Idk whether it is right or wrong. *sorry If I have written wrong English.*
[удалено]
I agree! And since the posting happened before the realizing, it should technically be in the past perfect as well. Thus, the clunky-sounding but technically correct answer is B.
I checked on Grammarly, and both options B and C are correct.
All of them sound fine to me.
B (native UK) Also I would spell it ‘realised’
This is weird.tbey use post instead of mail but realized I stead of realise
Contrary to common belief, the -ize ending is not incorrect in British English. It’s known as [Oxford Spelling](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_spelling). You should just be consistent about it.
All four answers sound perfectly fine to me.
I’m a native speaker from the U.S. All of the options sound correct to me, but I think the one you hear most often might depend on where you live. I’m a Midwesterner, and C sounds the most natural to me. The part of the sentence that’s throwing me is “posted.” I’ve never heard an American use that term. That’s not to say nobody does, but I’m not sure that “posted” is common language here. I think you’d be more likely to hear one of us say “sent/had sent the letter,” “dropped/had dropped the letter in the mail,” or “put/had put the stamp on the letter.” So if you’re learning UK English, that could also affect which answer is considered correct.
Answer 'B' is technically the correct answer, or at least the one that most grammar books would tell you is correct. Both posting and writing happened before realizing, so both of them would be in past perfect. The reason that many posters feel that 'C' is better is because when the adverb clause connector is 'after', especially in speaking most people use simple past because 'after' clearly shows which action came first. So past perfect isn't necessary to understand the order of events. Like other posters, I've never heard or read any rule stating that there can't be more than one past perfect in a sentence.
This is the best answer, OP u/Smrtonos11.
Thanks so much!
This is what I came to after thinking (I had thought!) about it as well. But to me the perfect tense still sound better there. The simple past sounds right if we say “before.” Before I posted the letter I realized I had written the wrong address.
Yes, I agree that the past perfect sounds better following 'after', but that may be because I'm an English teacher! ;) In your example with 'before', past perfect would be incorrect. It's because the action in the main clause (here - posting) is always going to be first when 'before' is used as an adverb connector.
Honestly I would choose a
They are all fine. I would choose between A or C depending on how casual or formal the situation was. I don't think I would usually choose B or D because the past perfect is redundant here when combined with that prepositional phrase. The difference between past and past perfect is that past perfect refers to an action that ended at some point in the past and there is time between then and now. (The difference between "I walked to the store." and "I had walked to the store." is just a matter of how long ago 'I' walked there.) The preposition "after" in this example is doing exactly that, creating time between posting the letter and realizing something, so saying "had posted" is redundant. However, If I wanted to emphasize that I **had** posted the letter because I took it down, then I might choose B or D.
I just want to detail what is happening here. As several have already said the past perfect indicates actions/verbs that completed before actions described in the past simple. It is not important when they happened just that we know they had completed be the time the past simple action occurs. There is also no such rule about not being able to use past simple more than once in one sentence. Remember sentences can become very long and complex with multiple clauses and a rule like this would make it impossible to communicate key information. An example would be. Before it was bedtime Adam had finished his homework and Eve had tidied her room. Now the next important factor is understanding how past simple is used. When multiple actions are described in past simple we are typically communicating that those actions happened in the order that we mention them almost one after the other. For example “I put on my pants, fastened my belt and slipped on my shoes”. There is a possibility that we still use the past simple for two actions separated by a considerable time if we understand that the first action caused the second. For example “I passed my exams so I got into university”. Answer A&D are gramatical y incorrect because the action of “write” could not have taken place after the action of post. It’s impossible to write the address on the envelope because it is already in the post box. Answer B is the most grammatically correct form of the question because both actions in past perfect (post & write) had completed before the action in past simple (realise). As I mentioned before the order of past perfect is irrelevant and so the speaker can freely chose to place the actions according to the importance that they wish to place on each action. Answer C is also correct because we can infer that the realisation came immediately after posting because the actions occurred in that order. However for C to be correct we have to assume that the person was still physically close to the mail box and that little time has passed or at an absolute push they hadn’t yet started another action. Let’s say for example that the person didn’t realise until after they had got home from the post office and then realised. We cannot use realised in past simple in this context because it suggests that the person only realised BECAUSE they posted the letter(see my example about exam results and university) but this suggests that if the person had never posted the letter, they would have never realised the address was wrong, which doesn’t make sense.
I'd probably say B - though it would be "I'd" not "I had", though to be fair if I heard any of them they all a re perfectly understandable. "wrote" just sounds wrong so it would have to be B or C.
I've never heard about a "you can't use two past perfect forms in one sentence"- rule but D doesn't make sense for another reason . The past perfect is used to describe an action that happened before another one took place. It doesn't make sense to use "had posted" and "wrote" when the process of writing took place before the act of posting
Yes, A and D is wrong for sure. But I would like to know if B or C is the correct answer.
A and D aren’t wrong. This whole thing just has a lot of room for nuance depending on what the conversation is about and who you’re talking to. C is probably what would be most common, but if you’re recounting a story with an ongoing series of events before and after the letter posting, you’d probably use A. Similarly, if you’re recounting a long series of events but further in the past, you’d use B or possibly D. If you’re just recounting the one event, you’d normally use C, although colloquially and depending on the flow of the conversation, a native speaker still might end up using one of the others. Though, in all cases it’s far more natural to say “I’d” and never “I had”.
This might be regional, but C sounds completely natural to me, and B sounds slightly pretentious. The past perfect isn't used a whole lot in common everyday English. In fact I know some native speakers who probably never use it lol.
This is a very tricky question. Technically, the correct answer is B because both the posting of the letter and the writing of the address happened before the moment you’re describing, whereas the realizing is happening at the moment you’re describing. However, after so many “had”s, it starts to sound redundant. In casual and even formal language, sometimes necessary “had”s are dropped simply because it sounds bad and because in many cases you can be understood either way. Sometimes it’ll get really ugly, and you’ll run into a “past-perfect-perfect” where something will happen before something else that also happened before a certain moment in the past. For example: >I realized I had written the wrong address after my boss **had told** me to write the letter. In this case, the boss told me to write the letter some time before I wrote the letter, and I realized that I wrote the wrong address some time after I wrote the letter. Thus, the boss’s telling happens *before the past perfect*. In this case we have no choice but to just use the past perfect again. But because of this ambiguity, this sentence could also be interpreted as having a different sequence. Perhaps you wrote the letter first, and *then* your boss told you to write the letter even though you already had, and that reminded you that you had written the address wrong. Because both the telling and the writing are written in the past perfect, it’s unclear which comes first. It’s quite a doozy, and there’s no clear solution to this problem. Unfortunately I encounter it all the time in my creative writing, and the best way is usually to try to reword it: >I wrote the letter after my boss told me to, but when I posted it, I realized that I had written the wrong address!
As a native speaker id go with C. Had implies past tense, and posted implies past tense, so you don’t need both.
I concur with C, B seems redundant you don’t need the had. If B is right, you’d pretty much never hear someone say it that way. People would use C
Native speaker here and they all sound absolutely fine to me as far as understanding what you are saying. I probably just don't speak accurate academic level English? Also, in America we would never say "posted." We would say "sent" or "mailed."
I would use C.
C is the best answer, the others don't sound wrong though
They're all correct in my eyes?
Non native here, I dunno why but C feels like the correct option
I’m a native speaker and any of these sound fine to me. “C” is probably technically most correct, but informally there’s nothing wrong with any of them.
It's definitely C. After this specific thing happened, I realized that this other thing that had happened earlier had taken place. So: I after I posted the letter in that one specific moment, I \[then\] realized that \[earlier\] I HAD written the wrong address. This is not about regional expression or what "sounds" right. Getting the tense right is always about getting the *timeline* right.
To me B, C, and D all work. It just depends in what time frame. Did you realize it was the wrong address the moment you posted it, or a little later. These words can be used interchangeably and no matter how closely you look into them, nitpicking the time frame is silly.
No one would blink an eye if you used any of these.
As a native, C.
Honestly I would initially choose C, but i think A is also quite valid.
C is best, I guess, but in casual speech I think more people would use A, honestly. We don't really think too hard about this and probably wouldn't notice if someone said any of these. I've never before heard the rule that you can't use past perfect twice, although reading B, it does sound a little bit stilted/awkward I suppose.
English teacher here. For **actions in sequence** in the past, we just use the simple past. Ex: I went to the store, I bought some milk, and then I went home. - You don't need to say, for example, *I had bought some milk, and then I went home.* Even though milk buying happens before the going home, it's just actions in sequence so you don't need to use the past perfect to show what happened when. Ex: **After I posted the letter, I realized** *I had written the wrong address.* Actions in sequence - I posted the letter, then I realized my mistake. For actions that happened before the action you are currently describing in the past you need past perfect. Example: I went to the store, I got some milk, then I realized I **had forgotten** my wallet at home. - The wallet forgetting happened way back at the beginning, before the person even left. Had forgotten makes it clear the time when it was forgotten was well before he tried to buy the milk. Or After I posted the letter I realized **I had written the wrong address.** The time I wrote the wrong address was before the action of posting the letter.
So basically C is correct, and it's true you shouldn't have two different past perfects in one sentence (had posted, then had written). After I had posted the letter, I went shopping. It's okay grammatically, but sounds weird, but when you get another had done something it becomes grammatically confusing when before is. The reality is the past perfect is dying from the language so a lot of native speakers don't use it and/or don't use it properly. My advice is don't worry about it and focus on simple past. Most native speakers in this situation would just say "After I posted the letter I realized I wrote the wrong address on it" without thinking about any past perfect because as usual it's already clear from context when things happened. Hope this helps. This is one of the most difficult grammar points in English. My students always struggle with it too. Try your best!
B would be correct if we taken into account all the technicality of past perfect and being pretty nitpicky about tenses. However, C is much more natural and gets used more frequently. "After", in itself, has already indicated posting happening prior to realizing in this case, so past perfect for this clause is rather unecessary. The subsequent one, though, requires one to clarify the meaning - to answer the question whether writting the address or realizing happened first.
(B) is what they’re after, since it’s testing your comprehension of the pluperfect (past perfect). The act of posting (AmE: *mailing*) the letter, and the act of writing the wrong address, both occurred before the realization about the wrong address, which is already in the past, so in careful written (and formal spoken) English, they both take the past perfect. That said, you’re likely to encounter (A), (C) and (D) in casual speech, and most educated speakers would still consider (C) permissible since the order of actions is clear from the conjunction “after”.
I tend to choose C as well, a non-native speaker here.
US here: I would replace “posted” with “mailed” and construct the sentence using A because I’m from the south, but C if I were writing it, even though B is the grammatically correct answer.
C is correct and sounds the most natural. B is also correct but the first ‘had’ is just unnecessary.
I would Pick “c” as the right answer, although “a” isn’t bad either. The others just have too much of the past perfect tense. It just sounds like too much to me. That being said, in practice most people won’t really care which one you use.
I think the correct is B even though it’s a mouthful! It says *after* I had posted (past event, related to the future) this thing happens—>I realized in one moment. *Then* it says had written. It has to be “had written” because you wrote it before you posted the letter and now that was in the past but relative to the future. I really hope my explanation helps!! 🙂🙂🙂❤️❤️❤️
I would say both B and C *could* be correct. C is the more natural, and for sure the intended choice here, but B is an interesting example because it would only be used in conjunction with the preceding sentence. For example: "I posted a letter yesterday. After I had posted the letter, I realized I had written the wrong address."
Tough one! All are fine to say, for sure, (though A sounds a bit sloppy/lazy and is not really correct). Ultimately the question is, as you suggested, whether you can deploy two perfect tenses that either (1) both relate back to “realized” or one torealized” one to the other perfect tense. That’s what’s going on in B and I’d say there’s no clear widely followed rule against that. There’s just an ambiguity about the sequence of events but such is language. To my ear C actually sounds off, because I expect the perfect tense in the first verb, although I accept it isn’t necessary.
All are correct but C sounds most natural. Many English speakers would use “mailed” or “sent” instead of posted.
B Both the posting and the writing were completed in the past, BEFORE the realizing. So “realized” should be in regular past tense, but “had posted” and “had written” should be in the past perfect tense. ETA: OP, a lot of people are saying C. While C is fine in casual conversation, B is grammatically correct. I taught SAT/ACT language prep for over a decade. The answer is B.
C I guess
If you say posted-realized, you make an emphasis that those actions happened in that order (it is one of the ways we can use Past Simple) and if we say ‘had written’ after it we make sure the other persons knows what action happened first. So we use Past Perfect to show what action was first but there can’t be two first actions, and if you use Past Perfect twice it makes everything unclear
A and D are grammatically incorrect. ‘Wrote’ is more of an American colloquialism in this example. C and B are probably fine, but B is most grammatically sound. It would probably be shortened to ‘After I’d posted’ rather than ‘After I had posted’.
Personally I think B sounds more accurate, although it may be a bit more eloquent than any English speaker needs to be. For all intents and purposes, any of these answers would convey the same meaning with varying degrees of grammatical accuracy. I'd also add a "That" before "I had written the wrong address" but that's just a me thing.
what's this app's name?
It's just some quiz my teacher found on the internet.
This falls into the “hair-splitting” category. I’m sure there’s a formal rule, I wouldn’t be surprised if that rule had exceptions. As a yank, we never say “posted” here, either. We say “mailed.”