Seen or saw?

Saw. Saying “seen” would make you sound like an uneducated country rube. “Seen” is the past participle of “see.” I will see him. I saw him. I have seen him. To use “seen” in your sentence, you would say “The first time I had seen you walk into the room.”

“I saw you walk into the room”, “I have seen you walk into a room before”. (“I seen you” is misused a lot around here, and it drives me crazy. It sounds so ignorant.)

I thought so and I was confident in my choice but a few friends have argued with me about when to properly use seen. My confidence waivered and I just had to ask the smart world of Fluther to be sure :)

The word “see” is a verb, present tense. The past tense of “see” is “saw”. The correct sentence would be “The first time I saw you walk into the room…”

The word “see” is known as an irregular verb, because it has a different form for past tense and the past participle. For example, if you say, “I have seen you,” it usually indicates a less definite time frame than, “I saw you.”

When people say things like “I seen it” they sound very ignorant, IMHO.

@jca That’s because it is incorrect grammar, and you have learned it to such an extent that it seems intuitive to you that someone who says such things “ain’t got no English learnin’”

Saw.

Seen is usually used with a have before it. I have seen it. Similar to have been, which you probably use correctly. I have been to New York. Or, I’ve been to NY. You wouldn’t say I been to NY.

“Saw” is the past tense of “see”. “Seen” is the participle form of the verb.

So:
I see → present tense
I will see → future tense
I saw → past tense
I have seen → present participle
I had seen → past participle
I will have seen → future participle

There are more tenses, but those are the most common, other than the various conditionals: should have / would have / could have, etc.

You can quote Roberta Flack for correct usage: “The first time ever I saw your face…” She said it correctly.

Saw
Seen is only used with have seen or another verb indicating tense.

For example:

I saw the light.
I have seen the light

Put it this way; you have to use “Have” or “Had” in front of “Seen.” “I have never seen that before.”

Yeah, don’t ever say “I seen.” Makes one sound like an 8th grade drop out.

Isn’t “seen” officially the past participle and used only with various auxiliaries as CWotus indicated? “Ought I to have seen that moose crossing the road sooner?”

We may have the word all wrong, too.

Perhaps you mean: “The first time I sawed, you walked into the room.” But I’m guessing… not.

Had you sawn all night?

Yeah, and boy was I tired the next morning from all that sawing.

Hearing (or reading) someone say “I seen it” or something similar is one of my biggest pet hates. Unfortunately, being from the south west of England I hear that more often than not.

It annoys me as much as people that say (type) “I should of” rather than “I should have”.

@OpryLeigh “should’ve” = “should have”

@snowberry “Should’ve” is fine, “Should of” isn’t (obviously you can only tell the difference when you see it in writing.)

No, I can hear “should of” even when spoken (sometimes just because I know the speaker). It floats out of their mouths like a dirty cartoon balloon.

I’m somehow reminded of the old play on words we sometimes heard as kids (for reasons that totally escape me): “I see! I see!” said the blind man to his deaf daughter as he picked up his hammer and saw.

It doesn’t have to make sense. It was never supposed to.

It’s “seed”

Um, no. Add -ed. So, I say it’s “seeed”.

Wow, I do like irregular verbs!

I sow, I sowed, I have sown.

(not to be confused with I sew, I sewed, I have sewn)

That slips out of my husband’s mouth every so often. I correct him, which annoys him. Same with “He’s went…”

When I was down in Arkansas, I saw a saw that can outsaw any saw I ever saw (or is it I’ve ever seen).
So if you’re ever down in Arkansas and see a saw that can outsaw the saw I saw, I’d like to see the saw you saw saw saw!

Mmm. “I see” said the blind man, who couldn’t see at all, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

@Dutchess_III It’s a miracle!