[Grammar] It is nice to meet you

[Maybo]

I have difficulty in tenses. I have been confused with the following situations:

1. A and B first meet. A says, "it is nice to meet you."

2. A and B first meet. After A and B have talked 30 minutes, A says, "it is nice to meet you."
(The problem is that A and B met 30 minutes ago so should I use past tense? For example, "it was nice to meet you", "it was nice to have met you", "it is nice to have met you".

3. A and B first meet. After 2 days, A says, "it was nice to meet you."
(Should I use "it was nice to have met you"?)

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I have difficulty with tenses. I have been confused with the following situations:

1. A and B first meet. A says, "It's nice to meet you."

2. A and B first meet. After A and B have talked 30 minutes, A says, "It was nice to meet you." The problem is that A and B met thirty minutes ago, so should I use the past tense?

If you're done talking, then yes, it's better to say, "It was nice to meet you."

For example, "It was nice to meet you", "It was nice to have met you", "It's nice to have met you".

Those are all fine. The first is the most natural.

3. A and B first meet. After two days, A says, "It was nice to meet you." Should I use "It was nice to have met you"?

No.

Keep practicing. It gets easier!

 

[Maybo]

When do we say "have met"?

 

[Rover_KE]

Click here, and bookmark the site for future reference.

 

[Maybo]

But why can't I use "It was nice to have met you" for situation #3 if it's referring to the past?

 

[Maybo]

Because the meeting referred to was at an earlier time.

Does "earlier time" refer to maybe like five or ten minutes ago but not two days ago?

 

[Phaedrus]

1. A and B first meet. A says, "it is nice to meet you."

2. A and B first meet. After A and B have talked 30 minutes, A says, "it is nice to meet you."
(The problem is that A and B met 30 minutes ago so should I use past tense? For example, "it was nice to meet you", "it was nice to have met you", "it is nice to have met you".

In my experience and natural usage, at least in informal contexts, there is a shift from "Nice to meet you" to "Nice meeting you" between contexts (1) and (2).

I generally do not hear or say the "It's," and when I do it tends only to be in the first context: "It's nice to meet you. Have you been here before?"

If I use or hear a full sentence in the second context, I use or hear "was" rather than "is": "It was nice meeting you. Have a nice day."

The other night I watched Mrs. Doubtfire, with Robin Williams. In this scene, he is speaking as an elderly English woman with a court-appointed supervisor.

At 1:58, the court-appointed supervisor says to Mrs. Doubtfire, "It was lovely to have met you." This usage, with "was" and "have met," stood out to me.

Funnily enough, Mrs. Doubtfire responds hurriedly with "Lovely to meet you." His tone of voice indicates an inadvertent lapse into his American male character.

 

[jutfrank]

Nice to meet you.

• Use this right at the beginning, before you've started to talk to the person. This is a customary greeting. (Don't say It is.)
• It's also possible to use this when departing, especially when the meeting was very brief, or you didn't talk to the person much.

It's really nice to meet you.

• You can use use this after 30 minutes of talking if you really want to say how glad you are to have made acquaintance with the person. It's not something we say customarily, however.

It was nice meeting you.

• Use this when departing.