has seen vs saw

[sara88]

Hi again dear friends
The diffrence between those two setences:
1)José has never seen the snow.
2)José never saw the snow.
They don't have the same meaning, therefore:
The first one conveys that José has never seen the snow lately, so he may saw it in the past.
The second one conveys that José didn't see the snow in the past so probably he may sees it now.
I hope I'm right this time!!
What do you think??!

[competence]

Hi Sara88,
You wrote:
The diffrence between those two setences:
1)José has never seen the snow.
2)José never saw the snow.
They don't have the same meaning, therefore:
The first one conveys that José has never seen the snow lately, so he may saw it in the past.
The second one conveys that José didn't see the snow in the past so probably he may sees it now.

1) Unfortunately there seems to be a common misunderstanding that the present perfect tells us about events that have happened recently in the past, but then how do we account for normal usage like: "The world has never seen a day of peace" or "I haven't seen an elephant since I was a small child"?



Try thinking about the present perfect as a bridge between the past and the present, connecting a past event to the present context - any past event, no matter when it happened. So the present perfect tells us about how the past is affecting us now.

2) In your second example, you use the past tense, which tells doesn’t tell us anything about now, only about the past.

I hope that helps.

Matthew Balson
Competence home

[rj1948]

Originally Posted by sara88

Hi again dear friends
The diffrence between those two setences:
1)José has never seen the snow.
2)José never saw the snow.
They don't have the same meaning, therefore:
The first one conveys that José has never seen the snow lately, so he may saw it in the past.
The second one conveys that José didn't see the snow in the past so probably he may sees it now.
I hope I'm right this time!!
What do you think??!

Jose never saw the snow.-Simple past.
Past tense is used to describe an action that has been concluded and whose exact time of occurence is known.It is simply a statement of past action.
I earned my degree in 2003.
Jose has never seen the snow.
He has seen the snow neither in the past nor in the presnt.
He didn't see in the past.Till now ,he has not seen it.
So present perfect is used to describe a past action that happened/that did n't happen which has effect on the present.For different situational usage.See:ENGLISH PAGE - Present Perfect
Regards,
rj1948.

[RonBee]

Sarah88, in your first sentence, did you mean:

Jose has never seen snow?

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by sara88

Hi again dear friends
The diffrence between those two setences:
1)José has never seen the snow.
2)José never saw the snow.
They don't have the same meaning, therefore:
The first one conveys that José has never seen the snow lately, so he may saw it in the past.
The second one conveys that José didn't see the snow in the past so probably he may sees it now.
I hope I'm right this time!!
What do you think??!

Be careful with the word "never". In 1. José could not have seen the snow in the past if he has never seen it.
2. This use of "never" is non-standard. You will occasionally hear sentences such as:
"I never saw her!" meaning "I didn't see her!"
"I never saw her last night!" meaning "I didn't see her last night".

[Soup]

1) José has never seen the snow. <present perfect>

For example, José lives in South Africa, and from very the day that he was born, all the way up until now, the present moment, he has never seen snow.

2) José never saw the snow again. <simple past>

For example, José lived in Alaska, where there is a great deal of snow. Then he moved to South Africa, where there isn't any snow, and so he never saw (the) snow again.

______________________
To add to Raymott's post, in American English the present perfect is merging with the simple past; e.g. I have never seen ~ I never saw ~ didn't see.

Ex: I slipped coming out of the house and broke my leg. I never saw/didn't see the snow on the steps!

[sara88]

In addition to the question of the verb tense, somone told me that it's wrong to use the "the" before the word snow in these sentences. In fact when we use "the" it means we are talking about a specific snow which is not the case here. What do you think??!

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by sara88

In addition to the question of the verb tense, somone told me that it's wrong to use the "the" before the word snow in these sentences. In fact when we use "the" it means we are talking about a specific snow which is not the case here. What do you think??!

That is why I asked the question I asked. "He has never seen snow" means something different from "He has never seen the snow". Indeed, the second one is highly unlikely. More likely: "He didn't see the snow."