4

This is the first time I have eaten sushi and I liked that

that should be possible because have eaten means that my meal is finished but I'm not sure or should use like

Barmar
  • 3,142
  • 10
  • 18
Yves Lefol
  • 7,469
  • 12
  • 49
  • 88
  • 5
    Where did you find that sentence? Did you make it up yourself? There are some errors in the grammar. I would suggest a correction "This was the first time I had eaten sushi, and I liked it." - this means it happened at an earlier time, and you are not currently eating sushi. Note also that "sushi" is generally an uncountable noun, and has no plural form. – Billy Kerr Jun 18 '23 at 09:31
  • If you want to use this while you were actually eating sushi, at the present time, you could say "This is the first time I have eaten sushi, and I like it". "Have eaten" is used here when we talk about past a past experience (that you have naver tasted sushi before, in the past)., and connecting that to what is happening now in the present. – Billy Kerr Jun 18 '23 at 09:41
  • 1
    It's sushi, e.g “This is the first time I've eaten egg-fried rice” (NOT rices) – Mari-Lou A Jun 18 '23 at 10:11
  • 1
    Sushis is not a word in English. It's a mass noun, not a count noun. Only partitive constructions are allowed when counting is needed; e.g., Seventeen pieces of nigiri sushi. – tchrist Jun 18 '23 at 14:08
  • 1
    There is a discrepancy between the title question and the body, where the additional "and I liked that" indicates you finished eating. From the title alone, it isn't known, because if you are still eating we don't say "This is the first time I am eating sushi" or "This is the first time I eat sushi". – Weather Vane Jun 18 '23 at 19:07
  • I think the easiest and most natural way of saying this would be

    "This is my first time eating sushi and I like it" (still eating) "That was my first time eating sushi and I liked it" (finished)

     – pickarooney Jun 19 '23 at 12:51
  • Beside the point, but use "it" instead of "that" here, to refer back to the eating of sushi. This might help: It, this and that in paragraphs - Cambridge – wjandrea Jun 19 '23 at 14:23

3 Answers3

10

You can say "This is the first time [that] I have eaten sushi " at any time after you have put a piece of sushi in you mouth and before you leave the table/restaurant.

because have eaten means that my meal is finished

This is not true. Even if there is the rest of the meal to be eaten, you have eaten as soon as one piece of food enters your mouth and you have bitten it.

Does "this is the first time I have eaten sushi "mean I have finished eating or I'm still eating sushis?

Neither. As you can also say this after the first bite and immediately after having eaten all your meal, the present perfect does not tell you the stage of the meal you have reached. All we know is that you have started to eat.

The pronoun “This” has a great effect on the sentence. “This” implies the current experience, and that can be understood as being at the table/restaurant or the action of eating a piece of sushi.

user81561
  • 2,446
  • 6
  • 17
  • 1
    This answer makes the important point that the word "This" references a specific experience or event. Before sitting down to eat, one may "This will be the first time I have eaten sushi" or "This will be my first time eating sushi", referring to the expected future. Also, even when you've finished the meal, "This is the first time I've eaten sushi" still makes sense for a short time afterwards. A group of people walking out of the restaurant together, chatting about the meal is an extension of the activity. Later, or the next day, you'd say "That was the first time I ate sushi" instead. – barbecue Jun 18 '23 at 18:20
  • 4
    It seems that it would be possible to use the sentence even slightly before ever having eaten sushi. For example consider having ordered sushi at a restaurant and then being asked what you think about sushi before actually receiving it. It feels to me that "This is the first time I have eaten sushi" would be a perfectly normal response. I think it would be quite hard to draw an exact dividing line between when it feels normal to say it and when it feels incorrect. – Fishbane Jun 18 '23 at 23:16
  • "you have eaten as soon as one piece of food enters your mouth and you have bit it" - Not sure about the latter requirement. If I swallow some food whole without biting or chewing it, I've still eaten, haven't I? Swallowing seems like the relevant criteria. If you put food in your mouth and then spit it out, you haven't eaten anything. Once you swallow, you have. Whether or not you bite or chew. – aroth Jun 19 '23 at 03:15
  • 2
    @Fishbane I was going to say the same thing. I think my dividing line would be "the point at which the action (eating sushi in this case) become inevitable." – MikeB Jun 19 '23 at 08:22
  • 1
    @user5577 Almost. The past tense in the second clause is not quite right – the present perfect would be more natural: “This is the first time I’ve played tennis, and I’ve already won my first match!” is perfectly correct and natural. This would be used if you’re speaking between matches or just after you finished playing. (Note that winning a match is inherently different from liking something – liking is a stative verb, so we rarely use the perfective aspect, except to describe how long it has lasted. So don’t say “… and I’ve liked it”.) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 19 '23 at 08:22
  • @user5577 Yes, that's correct. You would use that while you're still playing tennis, but after the first match you had ever played (which you won). Two typos though: "This is the first time I've ..." – wjandrea Jun 19 '23 at 14:29
  • @Janus It's worth pointing out that that doesn't mean the same thing: "I’ve already won my first match" means you've won one match so far, not necessarily "the first match I played". But the "already" in the original sentence is ambiguous; I interpreted it as a connection of two thoughts, like "I've already won a match -- the first one I ever played". – wjandrea Jun 19 '23 at 14:43
  • @wjandrea You’re right, I paraphrased in my head without even noticing. I would then say the sentence given does not work: already here all but requires a perfect construction. The following both work, but mean different things: “This is the first time I’ve played tennis, and I won the first match I played!” (first match played = first match won) — “This is the first time I’ve played tennis, and I’ve already won my first match!” (first match played not necessarily first match won). The first still feels a bit odd; more natural would be, “This was my first tennis match ever, and I won!”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 19 '23 at 14:57
  • You can also say this as you walk away from the restaurant. – Luke Sawczak Jun 19 '23 at 15:02
  • @Fishbane While your response would be OK, I think most would use the future tense until they've eaten something: "I don't know, since this will be my first time eating sushi." OTOH, "This is my first time eating sushi, what should I order?" sounds normal. – Barmar Jun 19 '23 at 15:16
  • yes this sentence "This is the first time I 've played tennis and I already won the first match I played"would be said while I am still playing tennis but after the first match was finished and before beginning the second match so the first match would be in the past (first match played =first match won ) – Yves Lefol Jun 19 '23 at 16:38
  • so why already needs a perfect construction in that sentence I saw "already" with past simple – Yves Lefol Jun 19 '23 at 16:49
  • @user5577 On further reflection, it’s not actually the verb form itself that makes the already awkward, but rather the notion of winning the first match you ever play. It doesn’t make sense to modify that by already, because it can only ever happen once (when you play your first match). You can’t do it earlier or later than would be expected, so ‘already’ doesn’t make sense. Consider the opposite: “I’ve played tennis for three years, but I still haven’t won the first match I ever played” – if you haven’t done it yet, you never will, because it’s in the past already. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 19 '23 at 19:34
  • So let’s just get rid of always altogether, because that’s the real problem. “This is the first time I’ve played tennis, and I(’ve) won the first match I(’ve) played” works well whether you use the simple past or the present perfect. If you use the same tense for win and play (past + past // perfect + perfect), it’s fine. Mixing the verbs (past + perfect or perfect + past) feels a bit odd (especially past + perfect), so I’d just stick to the same form in both verbs. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 19 '23 at 19:40
  • I did not choose the right word but what I wanted to show was the unbelievable situation. I began to play tennis with a victory. It was quite a miracle! that is what I wanted to show and in french (i'm french) already "déjà" can have this meaning so I thought it was the same in English – Yves Lefol Jun 19 '23 at 20:58
  • Yes, already does have that meaning – it just doesn’t make sense here; I wouldn’t have thought it would really work in French either (« … et j’ai déjà gagné le premier match que j’ai jamais joué » sounds strange to me in French as well, but I’m not a native French speaker, so perhaps it’s not really?). In English, already describes the great surprise of the situation, but the surprise is that it happened so soon – and when something cannot possibly happen either sooner or later than it did, you can’t really be surprised at when it happened. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 19 '23 at 23:23
  • in french it would be "j'ai déjà gagné le premier match que j'ai joué " jamais does not work in this sentence like already in english. But I have seen "already" with past simple in many texts and sentences – Yves Lefol Jun 20 '23 at 05:35
8

1: This is the first time I have ever done something that I am still doing1
2: That was the first time I had ever done something (no 'still doing' implications)

You can't really start #1 with That is..., but you could start #2 with This was... if preceding text has established the sushi-eating occasion as a "current narrative topic / focus".

Equally, you can't use the combination of verb tenses This is ... I had in #1, but you could use That was ... I have in #2. The second verb form is really just a stylistic choice reflecting whether the speaker is more interested in talking about his past or present circumstances.

1 Sometimes you might use Present Perfect like this if you've very recently finished doing something. For example, you might say #1 to the maitre d' as you leave a restaurant, after having eaten sushi there. As ever, Present Perfect simply implies a very strong connection to "time of utterance", so that scenario is "close enough".

FumbleFingers
  • 70,966
  • 4
  • 97
  • 196
0

To the level of detail that you're focusing on, "sushi" and "the meal" are different.

When you have put one piece of sushi in your mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it, you have eaten sushi. How many other pieces are on your plate is an irrelevant consideration.

In reality, we don't limit ourselves to only saying "having [done X]" meaning that X must now be done. If this is the first time I've heard Metallica play live that doesn't mean I'm not still hearing it. We allow for subdivision. Hearing Metallica play live can be subdivided into smaller experiences which also count as hearing Metallica play live.

However, there are some actions which are inherently bounded, and you cannot subdivided any further. If this is the first time I have punched someone named Robert, then my fist has already connected with Robert. I cannot state this while I'm still in the process of swinging my fist, as that does not constitute a punch (yet), at best it is the intention of a punch.

This is a very contextual process that does not rely on grammatical precision, it's driven by informal convention based on what sounds right.

Therefore, if I slightly change your example:

This is the first time I have eaten 20 pieces of sushi

Then yes, this statement can only be made after eating the 20th piece of sushi.

But "eating sushi" is something that can be divided into smaller steps, it is unrelated to the size of the meal, so that same answer does not apply to your actual question.

Flater
  • 1,799
  • 10
  • 11
  • I have eaten sushi for many years, but I have never eaten 20 pieces of sushi. I would understand "eaten 20 pieces of sushi" as "eaten 20 pieces of sushi during one meal". – gnasher729 Jun 19 '23 at 09:08
  • @gnasher729: Yes, the assumption being that we're talking about meal size, not lifetime count. Otherwise we get into "I'm the oldest I've ever been" territory :) – Flater Jun 19 '23 at 23:48