Hi, Ahmed,
Hello. Which form is correct?
- I (hoped - had hoped) to leave by 8, but I overslept and missed the bus.
Thank you.
'Had hoped' seems the better answer because of the presence of 'by + past time'. However, Martin Hewings in Advanced Grammar says:
"We can use either the past perfect or past simple (and often past continuous and past perfect continuous; see Units 4 and 7) when we talk about things that we intended to do, but didn’t or won’t now do in the future:
I had hoped to visit the gallery before I left Florence, but it’s closed on Mondays. (or I hoped ..., I was hoping ..., I had been hoping ...)