4

The present perfect tense (I have lost my key) is used when I lost my key, and I don't still have it. Is it right?

Then, if I lost my key, but I found the key, and I have it now, can I say "I haven't lost my key because I found it"? Because the present perfect tense is used when there's still effect now, but there's no effect now.

  • 2
    I lost my keys, but i've found them again. – anouk Dec 23 '23 at 16:12
  • @anouk What about "I haven't lost my key"? –  Dec 23 '23 at 16:13
  • 4
    But you did lose your key, it's just that you've found it again. – anouk Dec 23 '23 at 16:46
  • 1
    The present perfect tense speaks of actions in the past up until the present. I haven't lost my key means that your key was NEVER lost at any time in the past, and is not lost now. But this would not be true if you did lose your key, so it wouldn't make logical sense to say that you found it if you never lost it. – Billy Kerr Dec 23 '23 at 17:20
  • Yes, you can say that. – Lambie Dec 23 '23 at 18:12
  • 4
    @Billy ‘I haven’t lost my key’ doesn’t mean that you’ve never lost your key in your life, just that you haven’t lost it in the scenario/timeframe being talked about. Perfectly natural: “Have you gone and lost your key again?” — “No, I haven’t lost my key, it’s right there on the counter!” (despite the fact that I have definitely lost my key previously in my life). No one would be able to say for certain that they’d never lost their key in their life – even if they don’t remember it, it’s such an insignificant thing that they could never be sure. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 24 '23 at 10:42
  • @JanusBahsJacquet - I didn't say "in your life", although it could mean that, depending on context. "I haven't tried oysters" for example. – Billy Kerr Dec 24 '23 at 11:08
  • 1
    @BillyKerr Perhaps I took “at any point in the past” more literally than you meant it, but that to me implies in your life… – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 24 '23 at 11:21
  • Broadly, that's OK for someone more comfortable with English, though the wording shows that doesn't work here.

    The thought you seem to be trying to express is 'Hey. There my key. I thought I'd lost it!'

    The meaning is very broadly the same, though your example depends as much on context as grammar.

    'I haven't lost my key because I found it' is wholly comprehensible, but it's too unusual to be useful.

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 24 '23 at 18:08
  • 1
    @JanusBahsJacquet: Most statements in English have some implied scope (which may be temporal, spatial, conceptual, etc.). "I haven't lost my key" can be read to mean the same as "I haven't ever lost my key," but most native speakers would expect there to be some (perhaps unspecified) period of time over which the statement ranges (whereas "ever" explicitly clarifies that there is no such temporal limitation). – Kevin Dec 25 '23 at 18:16

3 Answers3

9

You could say

I haven't lost my key after all.

Including after all gives the meaning: "I believed that I had lost my key and would never find it, but actually I had merely misplaced it." Or "...but actually I had merely forgotten where I put it." Or "... but it had slipped through a hole in my pocket down into the lining of my jacket." Whatever. The core idea is that you were mistaken in thinking that it was lost.

TimR
  • 123,877
  • 7
  • 100
  • 202
7

Simple Past...

1: I lost it, but then I found it

...is a valid, natural utterance. But...

2: I have lost it, but then I found it

...isn't idiomatic, because Present Perfect implies an action that continues (or at least, continues to be relevant) up until time of speaking.

But since the thing has been found1 after being lost, obviously the (act or effect of) loss doesn't continue up to time of speaking. So we'd expect Past Perfect I had lost it - referring back to the earlier action before I found it.

We don't say...

3: I haven't lost my key because I found it
...but we do say...
4: My key isn't lost because I found it
...or more often, just...
5: My key was lost but I found it

1 Note that Present Perfect is fine here, because the (act or effect of) finding the thing continues up until time of speaking.

FumbleFingers
  • 70,966
  • 4
  • 97
  • 196
2

Another way you can express this is

My keys are no longer lost.

"no longer" implies that the keys had been lost in the past, but this condition has been remedied.

Barmar
  • 3,142
  • 10
  • 18