When to use it
Use it when someone in India offers you a dish and you want to say you have never tried that kind of food.
The sentence in English — “I've never eaten Japanese food.”
In “I've never eaten Japanese food.” ‘I've’ is ‘I have’, and ‘eaten’ is the past participle of ‘eat’: a present perfect about life experience. ‘never’ is already negative, so no ‘not’ is added, and ‘Japanese’ takes a capital letter.
- I
- pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter
- 've
- auxiliary verbhave · tense: present · person: first · number: singular · short form of "have"; with "eaten" it talks about life experience up to now
- never
- adverbadverb of frequency
- eaten
- verbeat · form: past participle · irregular verb: eat, ate, eaten
- Japanese
- adjectiveadjective of nationality, always capitalised in English
- food
- nounnoun
The sentence in Hindi — “मैंने कभी जापानी खाना नहीं खाया है।”
In “मैंने कभी जापानी खाना नहीं खाया है।” the perfect ‘खाया है’ (have eaten) of a transitive verb makes the subject take ने: मैं + ने = ‘मैंने’. Because of ने, the verb agrees with the object ‘खाना’ (food, masculine). ‘कभी … नहीं’ together mean ‘never’.
- मैंने
- pronoun'मैं' + ने: in the perfect of a transitive verb the subject takes ने
- कभी
- adverbtime adverb; with नहीं it means 'never'
- जापानी
- adjectiveadjective 'Japanese', describing खाना
- खाना
- nounmasculine noun 'food'; the verb agrees with it
- नहीं
- adverbnegation before the verb
- खाया
- verbखाना · aspect: perfective · gender: masculine · number: singular · with ने, the verb agrees with the object खाना, not the subject
- है
- auxiliary verbहोना · tense: present · role: forms the present perfect · खाया है = present perfect 'have eaten'
English × Hindi — What changes from one language to the other
English uses one word, ‘never’; Hindi uses ‘कभी’ plus ‘नहीं’. The ergative ने has no English equivalent: in English the subject always controls the verb, in Hindi the object does in this sentence. Both languages build the perfect with ‘have/है’ plus a participle.
Example conversation
— मैंने कभी जापानी खाना नहीं खाया है।
— I've never eaten Japanese food.
— तो आज रात सुशी ज़रूर खाइए!
— Then you should try sushi tonight!