Different use of present prefec vs past perfect

Question

hi
i am confused with below situation, i am trying to practice when to use present prefect and when to use paste prefect the in situation of "it is/was the first time “. i made those sentence up, they are exactly the same sentence , but just different in tense .

it is the first time i have seem Lisa drinking alcohol .

vs

it was the first time i had seem Lisa drinking alcohol

are those two sentence correct ? and if so, what are the difference in their expression ?

i have seem her once, vs i had seem her once ,

thank you for your help .

Lin

MalRey · Accepted Answer

Welcome to the forums. Please pay attention to capitalization, spelling and punctuation.

Hugo LinAre those two sentence correct? If so, what are the differences in their meaning?

It is the first time I have seen Lisa drinking alcohol. I take this to mean that you are currently watching Lisa drink.
vs
It was the first time I had seen Lisa drinking alcohol. I take this to mean that you watched Lisa drink sometime in the past.

Clive · Answer

Hi Lin.

seen

You need to start each sentence with a capital letter,and also use a capital for the pronoun I.

i am confused with below situation, i am trying to practice when to use present prefect and when to use paste prefect the in situation of "it is/was the first time “. i made those sentence up, they are exactly the same sentence , but just different in tense .

it is the first time i have seem Lisa drinking alcohol . You can see her doing it right now, at the present time. It is the first time in the period of 'the past up until the present'.

vs

it was the first time i had seem Lisa drinking alcohol You are speaking about some point in the past that you saw her drinking. Let's assume it was last Friday at 6 pm. It was the first time in the period of 'the past up until last Friday at 6pm'.

Clive

Different use of present prefec vs past perfect

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