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If you were at the door and found out that you had forgotten your keys you might say: "I have forgotten my keys" ..

but what would it mean if you said I forgot my keys instead?

user37421
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    I think most people would be far more likely to say "I forgot my keys" if they forgot their keys. The act of forgetting took place in the recent/immediate past so there is no need for the present participle. – Paul Richter Mar 01 '15 at 17:32
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    No need for two extra syllables to say something obvious. Most of the time speakers have a choice between perfect and past, unless there's some aspect they want to emphasize. – John Lawler Mar 01 '15 at 17:43
  • Are they talking with formal English grammar or it is the same? – user37421 Mar 01 '15 at 17:59
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    @user37421 I’m betting you that are taking your cues from some English-as-a-second-language instruction book that presents so oversimplified a version of reality as to have no bearing on the same. If so, throw it out because it is full of lies. – tchrist Mar 01 '15 at 18:10
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    @PaulRichter: Not in my part of the English-speaking world. "I've forgotten my keys" sounds much more normal to me. – Colin Fine Mar 01 '15 at 18:38
  • @tchrist Why do you think that using English in this way would be simpler than using it with both ways? I think these second language books then are in fact more complicated! – user37421 Mar 01 '15 at 19:17
  • @ColinFine Well either might be used but they would mean different things. If one's mind was not focused upon any particular moment of forgetting, then I have forgotten my keys would be fine. However if, one was reflecting back on the time one was actually gathering one's possessions together, one might say After all that, I forgot my keys. – WS2 Mar 01 '15 at 19:23
  • Yes, @WS2, in a different situation from the one the OP posited, one might indeed say something different. – Colin Fine Mar 01 '15 at 22:49
  • @ColinFine As with a lot of English, specially the choice between perfect and past simple, it can depend on what you were thinking when you said it. – WS2 Mar 02 '15 at 07:50

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If you are talking about "the recent past," it would mean you were speaking American English and not British English. For a situation (or, in a context) such as this, BrE prefers the present perfect and deprecates the simple past, while AmE can go either way but the simple past is probably most natural.

See Use of the Present Perfect in Differences Between American and British English. I suppose it's only fortuitous that they use as an example a sentence about losing one's keys.

Another situation, from The English Verb by Palmer is the situation where a family is (American English) or are (British English) preparing to have dinner, and the child reports whether his hands are clean.

In British English the child will report:

Yes, I've just washed them.

while

in a American English, the response is more likely to be, or at least just as likely,

I just washed them.

This blog post on the present perfect on separated by a common language is well written, despite the author being a linguist. :) It's one I highly recommend. It goes into the nuances of what the present perfect expresses that the simple past does not, usually.

pazzo
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  • You mean in the last sentence "... that the simple past does not"?? – Greg Lee Mar 01 '15 at 19:00
  • It's not so obvious that the British use of the perfect here is not a past tense. There is an analysis which derives a perfect "have" from a past tense, coming from examples like "I believe he eats" ==> "I believe him to eat", "I believe he ate" ==> "I believe him to have eaten". – Greg Lee Mar 01 '15 at 19:11