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A few example sentences:

  • I woke up late and realized I overslept (or) had overslept.

  • I went to market yesterday bought some clothes while paying the bill I realized I left (or) had left my wallet at home.

  • When I got home, I realized someone stole (or) had stolen my wallet

Which tense should I use? In this situation, should I use a past simple or past perfect? Or can I use both?

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I think past perfect would be the better choice for all three sentences. There are are a few other errors in the second sentence.

I woke up late and realized that I had overslept.

I went to the market yesterday and bought some clothes. While paying the bill, I realized that I had left my wallet at home.

When I got home, I realized that someone had stolen my wallet.

I am not sure exactly what rule governs these tenses, but the perfect tense sounds much better to me. This may be due to the presence of another verb, “realized,” preceding each verb in question.

*note - I added the word “that” into the examples to improve formality, but that is not strictly necessary.

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  • thanks bro can you tell me about these sentences? "he was tired because he didnt sleep or hadnt slept" and he was hungry because he didnt eat or hadnt eaten" what should i use here?
    – Romy Learner
    Dec 24, 2022 at 19:44
  • @RomyLearner These should be in perfect tense as well. “He was tired because he hadn’t slept. He was hungry because he hadn’t eaten.” Otherwise, you imply that he never eats or sleeps.
    – Graham H.
    Dec 24, 2022 at 19:59
  • so he was tired because he didn't sleep is incorrect? what if i say "he was tired because he didnt sleep or hadnt slept a night before" whats correct here use of before clears the event so shoudnt i use didnt sleep here?
    – Romy Learner
    Dec 24, 2022 at 20:18
  • but i was told "he was tired because he didnt sleep 'and "he was hungry because he didnt eat" is correct in everday american english so what really is correct?
    – Romy Learner
    Dec 24, 2022 at 20:20
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    @Romy Learner: "... because he didn't eat" is not incorrect in American English. But even in American English, he was hungry because he hadn't eaten is better grammar. Whoever told you that "he was hungry because he didn't eat" is superior in American English probably was told that "Americans don't use the perfect tense." That's not true. What is true is that we don't use the perfect tense as often as the British do.
    – Peter Shor
    Dec 24, 2022 at 20:56
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Using past perfect would suit this context more.

I woke up late and realized I had overslept.

I went to the market yesterday and bought some clothes. While paying the bill, I realized I had left my wallet at home.

When I got home, I realized someone had stolen my wallet.

In these 3 sentences, you could also use "that" before "had" to make it more fluid.

On this website, one example sentence was:

The line down the highway blurred for a second and she realized she had nearly fallen asleep.

Which has the same sentence structure as your sentences, here it prefers "had" after using "realized" earlier in the sentence.

Also shown here, since realized is past tense, have would have to be converted to past tense as well, to had.

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I woke up late and realized that I had overslept.

I went to the market yesterday and bought some clothes. While paying the bill, I realized that I had left my wallet at home.

When I got home, I realized that someone had stolen my wallet.

I think the usage of past tense makes more sense. Goodluck

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