I was asked to fill in the blank for the sentence, "After he said that, he left," where the conjugation of dire was missing. I had been asked so much lately about passé simple that I used simply dit, when a dit was expected. I was marked wrong for that.
But isn't it also correct, although unexpected? Or is it just that a native speaker would never do that for such a simple sentence, so it should be discouraged?
Bonjour Scott,
If I have understood your question correctly, you wanted to use the passé simple of dire, but it is the wrong tense here; you would need the passé antérieur as the action precedes 'il partit', which would be in the passé simple.
However, you are complicating things, and it is not needed here; it wouldn't have been accepted anyway.
But very clever of you to suggest a more literary sentence.
If you dont know this tense, here is a brief description -
Le Passé Antérieur (Indicatif)
Hope this helps!
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