I regret saying that I hate/hated you.

I was taught that "regret to say" and "regret saying" had different meanings.

Regret to say X  = You are sorry to say X
Regret saying X = You wish you hadn't said X

Anyway, you'd better wait for a native

Angliholic wrote:

I regret saying that I hate you. I regret saying that I hated you. I regret to say that I hate you. I regret to say that I hated you. Which of the above four versions sound right to you? Which ones are identical in meaning? Thanks.

Hi Angliholic,

I regret to say I'd probably use only the first one.  There's no reason to put "hate" in the past tense, unless there's some contextual evidence that I had stopped hating you at the time I said it.  It's quite messy, because there's the time of the hating, the time of the saying, and the time of the regretting.

The main verb regret is simple present tense in all four examples.  If you said, "I enjoy saying that I hate you," it would be much easier.  It would have the flavor of present progressive simply because of the context   -   like, "I'm enjoying saying that I hate you."  "I enjoy saying that I hated you," would have a very clear meaning.

Pucca is probably right about "saying" vs "to say."  I personally would use the present participle with the verb (I regret saying) and save the infinitive for the adjective (I'm sorry to say.)  But I know people say, "I regret to say that I hated you,"  meaning, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I used to hate you," as Pucca suggests.

  - A.