Is this statement, “i see him last night” can be understood as “I saw him last night”?

Question

In my local language (Bahasa Indonesia) there are no verb-2 or past tense form as time tracker. So, I often forget to use the past form of verb when speaking english.
I saw him last night (correct)
I see him last night (incorrect)
But i think both has the same meaning and are understandable,
Isn’t it?

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debatetalklive 2017-07-16T00:19:10+00:00 2 Answers 809 views
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Answers ( 2 )

  1. Amr Gamal
    3
    2017-07-16T00:22:59+00:00
    Reply

    Yes, I understand it. I hear a lot of this incorrect grammar from my wife. I would expect that the person that spoke this was possibly Chinese. In Chinese there are no tenses or plurals. No he or she pronouns. The context tells all. So it might have been a direct translation from Chinese.

  2. Fouad Badawy
    3
    2017-07-16T00:23:12+00:00
    Reply

    There is a certain poetic sense in which “I see” works. “I see him last night in my dreams” although not technically correct. However, generally speaking “I saw” is the right usage for past events. Much prose writing in English novels is in the present tense although they are about past events. The author superimposes himself however on the situation as if it were the present.

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