Encuentra profesores de Inglés
Mohamed
difference between (already/before) ?
What is the difference in meaning between the following sentences?
I have already seen her.
I have seen her before.
I already see her.
I already saw her.
I sow her before.
1 de may. de 2014 20:29
Respuestas · 5
2
I saw her before.
I saw her already.
Already means "by now" and before places the event on a time line.
for example
"I saw her before lunch" makes sense.
"I saw her already lunch" does not make sense.
Before is a preposition and already is not. Prepositions express relations to time or space. In this case time. Already is an adverb.
Just like your example
I have already seen her.
I have seen her before.
You can often use them to mean similar things but the sentence must be written differently.
Before can mean already but already can not mean before.
Hopefully that makes sense.
1 de mayo de 2014
1
"I already see her" is incorrect. The correct form of this is the first sentence you wrote "I have already seen her" In your last sentence, I think you misspelled "saw" as "sow" in which case "I saw her before" is correct
The difference in meaning is that already implies something recent and something that doesn't require seeing the person again
while before implies at some time in the past and possibly with some confusion as to where.
So:
I already saw her/I have already seen her
I went to her and don't need to go back to her to do what you are saying I need to do
while
I have seen her before/I saw her before
I have seen her somewhere. Where was it? OR simply "I have went to her before"
1 de mayo de 2014
I saw her before I met my wife.
1 de mayo de 2014
¿No has encontrado las respuestas?
¡Escribe tus preguntas y deja que los hablantes nativos te ayuden!
Mohamed
Competencias lingüísticas
Árabe, Inglés
Idioma de aprendizaje
Inglés
Artículos que podrían gustarte

The Power of Storytelling in Business Communication
44 votos positivos · 9 Comentarios

Back-to-School English: 15 Must-Know Phrases for the Classroom
31 votos positivos · 6 Comentarios

Ten Tourist towns in Portugal that nobody remembers
59 votos positivos · 23 Comentarios
Más artículos