Since I left London, I lost/have lost my phone.

[ROFTOK]

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone.
2 Since I left London, I lost my phone.

I think that 1 means that I have lost it more than once and apparently I have found it more than once.
Sentence 2 means, as I think, that I lost my phone once and haven't found it.

What's your take?

 

[emsr2d2]

In sentence 1, you lost your phone at some point after leaving London and you have not yet found it.
Sentence 2 doesn't work for me. The present perfect is the appropriate tense after "since".

 

[ROFTOK]

It makes sense, thank you. What about a situation in which a person would have lost their phone and had found it later?

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone. - the phone is missing
1a 1 Since I left London, I (lose) my phone. - the phone was lost and found later

 

[5jj]

After I left London, I couldn't find my phone for a few days. It eventually turned up under the back seat of my car.

 

[tedmc]

There is nothing in the original pair of sentences to imply that the phone was found after it was lost.

 

[Tarheel]

What about a situation in which a person had lost their phone but later found it?

Perhaps: "I lost my phone after I left the apartment. Thank goodness I found it!"

 

[ROFTOK]

After I left London, I couldn't find my phone for a few days. It eventually turned up under the back seat of my car.

Why would one go into such great detail when in need to get across such a simple message? Maybe the speaker doesn't want to say how long the phone was missing and where it was found.

It sounds as if English doesn't give a simple way to convey the idea of losing a phone without finding it later. Unless....

 

[ROFTOK]

Perhaps: "I lost my phone after I left the apartment. Thank goodness I found it!"

I don't think that your example meets the original terms of my question. Your example is missing the word "since" which is a crucial condition.

 

[5jj]

Why would one go into such great detail when in need to get across such a simple message?

Give all and only the detail you wish the other person to receive. Don't try to convey too much information in the tense alone.

 

[5jj]

Your example is missing the word "since" which is a crucial condition.

Why?

 

[ROFTOK]

Give all and only the detail you wish the other person to receive.

But your sentence is at odds with your advice.

After I left London, I couldn't find my phone for a few days. It eventually turned up under the back seat of my car.

The fragments in bold are extra information.

Don't try to convey too much information in the tense alone.

OK. But this sentence conveys enough information in the tense alone for the opposite meaning to become a stumbling stone.

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone. - concise
2 After I left London, I couldn't find my phone for a few days. It eventually turned up under the back seat of my car. - wordy

All I want to accomplish here is create a similar sentence which would communicate the idea of losing and not finding the phone provided that the two sentences are pretty much the same in terms of the number of lexical units. Let's compare the two:

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone.
2 After I left London, I couldn't find my phone for a few days. It eventually turned up under the back seat of my car.

 

[ROFTOK]

Why?

Because this word is an integral part of my original sentences.

 

[Glizdka]

It seems like you're trying to condense too much information into too few words. You can't expect a tense alone to convey everything you want to say.

When you say you've lost your phone, we don't know when it happened, but we know you don't have it anymore.

When you say you lost your phone, we know it happened some time ago, but we don't know whether you managed to find it later. You may or may not have it now.

If you want to communicate more, you need to use more words. That's why other users have recommended wordier alternatives, because you're expecting more information to be communicated.

 

[5jj]

Because this word is an integral part of my original sentences.

That sounds as if you woke up yesterday morning with the thought "I must write a sentence about leaving London and losing my phone, and it must contain the word 'since'".

 

[ROFTOK]

It seems like you're trying to condense too much information into too few words. You can't expect a tense alone to convey everything you want to say.

When you say you've lost your phone, we don't know when it happened, but we know you don't have it anymore.

When you say you lost your phone, we know it happened some time ago, but we don't know whether managed to find it later. You may or may not have it now.

If you want to communicate more, you need to use more words. That's why other users have recommended wordier alternatives, because you're expecting more information to be communicated.

First of all. We are scrutinizing not "I have lost my phone" and "I lost my phone" but

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone.
2 Since I left London, I lost my phone.

I fail to see the ground you rely on when you say this: It seems like you're trying to condense too much information into too few words. You can't expect a tense alone to convey everything you want to say.

Why don't you have the same issue with "Since I left London, I have lost my phone."?
Why is it that that sentence conveys "too much information with too few words"? Why don't you use extra words in this sentence?

If "Since I left London, I have lost my phone." means that the phone is still missing, why is it impossible to come up with a similar sentence which would express the idea of the phone having been found?

That's what I don't understand.

 

[Glizdka]

First of all. We are scrutinizing not "I have lost my phone" and "I lost my phone" but

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone.
2 Since I left London, I lost my phone.

The difference between sentence 1 and sentence 2 is that sentence 2 is incorrect. See post #2.

I fail to see the ground you rely on when you say this: It seems like you're trying to condense too much information into too few words. You can't expect a tense alone to convey everything you want to say.

It's mostly post #11. In particular, this part:

All I want to accomplish here is create a similar sentence which would communicate the idea of losing and not finding the phone provided that the two sentences are pretty much the same in terms of the number of lexical units.

As said in post #13, "I have lost my phone" means you lost it and don't have it now, and "I lost my phone" means you lost it and may or may not have it now. Those are the "default" interpretations of these two sentences when no other information is added. If you want to communicate something other than these two interpretations, you have to add extra words.

If "Since I left London, I have lost my phone." means that the phone is still missing, why is it impossible to come up with a similar sentence which would express the idea of the phone having been found?

That's what I don't understand.

I suppose that's just how English works. If you want to say that at some point you lost your phone, but later managed to find it, you have to say exactly that, "I lost my phone, but I managed to find it later". If you just want to say you lost it and don't have it now, "I've lost my phone" is enough, and no other words are necessary.

 

[Tarheel]

@ROFTOK It seems to me that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. If you want to say you lost your phone say that. You're finished! If you want to say you lost it but found it later, say that! You're finished! Include as much detail as you care to.

 

[Tarheel]

@ROFTOK You seem to want people to use "since" in a certain way that may not be natural to them. As for me, I might say, for example, "It's been more than ten years since I left Saint Louis."

Since you use terms like "lexical units", it seems like you should be the one answering the questions. (Most native speakers would have no idea what that means.)

 

[emsr2d2]

First of all. We are scrutinizing not "I have lost my phone" and "I lost my phone" but

1 Since I left London, I have lost my phone.
2 Since I left London, I lost my phone.

The only difference between the two is the use of the present perfect in sentence #1 and the past simple in sentence #2. How can we scrutinise anything but those? "Since I left London" is identical in both.
We seem to be going round in circles. After "Since I left London", only the present perfect works.

If we remove the opening, we're left with what you say we're not meant to be looking at - "I've lost my phone" and "I lost my phone". As has been said several times, "I've lost my phone" means you haven't found it yet and "I lost my phone" doesn't tell us whether you've found it yet.