Which sentence is corrrect?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have a sentence

"I spoke to my sister-in-law, and she said that she didn't read the book before the film"

In my opinion we should use Past Perfect tense 'she said she hadn't read" but i know tkat sometimes Past Simple can be used instead of Past perfect. So which sentence is correct and why?

TIA

LeeLoo

[MikeNewYork]

Hi,

I have a sentence

"I spoke to my sister-in-law, and she said that she didn't read the book before the film"

In my opinion we should use Past Perfect tense 'she said she hadn't read" but i know tkat sometimes Past Simple can be used instead of Past perfect. So which sentence is correct and why?

TIA

LeeLoo

I don't care much for the sentence as written. As it stands, it sounds as if she read the film after reading the book.

The best, and most formal, would be to use the past perfect:

"I spoke to my sister-in-law, and she said that she hadn't read the book before she saw the film."

The past perfect puts the reading before the seeing.

However, this is less necessary because of the timing clue provided by the conjunctive adverb "before". It also places the reading before the seeing. So, many would accept the simple past tense there.