Your feeling that, “I HAD NOT seen it before,” sounds wrong is absolutely correct. "HAD NOT" in this dialogue is wrong. “HAD NOT seen,” is the Past Perfect tense of “to see.” It refers to an action that was completed prior to some point in time or to some event that occurred in the past.

Jan 8, 2025 · Make the past perfect negative by adding not between had and the past participle (e.g., had not seen). Form a question in the past perfect tense by beginning the sentence with had and placing the subject between it and the past participle (e.g., “Had you seen it?”).

Nov 17, 2017 · Did is the simple past of the verb to do. Present tense would be "he does not invite me." So it is correct when talking about a past event to say, "he did not invite me," since it's the did that makes it past tense.

So, the difference between hadn't and didn't is that they are used in different tenses and have different meaning. In this case the sentence. Please do not dock my pay as I was in the office but hadn't brought my ID card.

Mar 6, 2025 · An example of the correct way to use "had not" is, "I had not eaten." This indicates that I did not eat yet. Here, eat is the main verb, and "had not" is used to help the reader understand that the action (eating) did not happen in the past.

1 means "I hadn't formed an intention to become a Dr because I always intended to be a teacher" (i.e. no thoughts on being a Dr) and 2 means "I had an intention to be a teacher and an intenion NOT to be a Dr" (i.e. against being a Dr).

May 15, 2019 · How does using "had" change the sentence meaning or grammar below - is it needed? Jamie returned to the table to grab the plane Bill had folded for him while they were waiting for the food. vs. ...

Apr 20, 2023 · Synonym for have not "Have not" is present (perfect) tense, "had not" is past (perfect) tense.

Jan 21, 2020 · No, the second sentence is not correct. You would have to say 'hadn't any' worthy rivals. Hadn't = had not and you cannot say 'had not rivals'. Not makes 'had' negative, whereas 'no' is a quantity (zero or none).

Jan 9, 2008 · There are possible contexts for "I had not known that", but not for "I have not known that". what is the right?: I had not known that before.. That is certainly possible in certain circumstances. For instance, you might say, "I hadn't known [or been aware of] that before I arrived in Tulsa.