"I've realized my mistake when I had a look at the blog." Is it correct?
I'm not sure if I should use "I had a look" or "I took a look". Is it both correct?

It's something that I wrote in English and I need to explain the error.

Thank you in advance :)

Question

"I've realized my mistake when I had a look at the blog." Is it correct?
I'm not sure if I should use "I had a look" or "I took a look". Is it both correct?

It's something that I wrote in English and I need to explain the error.

Thank you in advance :)

Answer

Hi Mirian,

You should say "I realized my mistake when I had a look at the blog". You need to use the Past Simple of the verb 'realize' because 'when I had a look at the blog' is a finished time period (just like 'yesterday', '2 hours ago', 'in 2005' etc).

'I had a look' and 'I took a look' are both possible.

Jamie (www.italki.com/jamie.teacher)

Answer

Both are correct, but since "when I (did something)" refers to a very specific point in time, you should use Past Simple: I realized my mistake when I took/had a look at the blog.

I've (I have) is Present Perfect. We use it specifically to say that an action happened at an UNSPECIFIED time before now.