Past tense or perfect tense?

The following quote is from Tintin's volume: Red Rackham's Treasure.

Originally Posted by Red Rackham's Treasure
So we've already passed the right point, and yet we saw nothing...I simply can't understand it!

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Tintin was written in French, and translated into BrE.
I understand why the perfect tense was used in "we've already passed..." but don't understand why the past tense in "we saw nothing." even though it's British English.

Question: Which would you choose for the parenthesis in "...yet we ( ) nothing..."?


Thanks everyone, for helping me so many times! If you have any questions about Japanese language, PM me. I'm happy to help you in return for your help!

Likely, the reason for using the simple past was to refer to the fact that they saw nothing at the moment they passed the right point (whatever that means), but I have no problem with "saw nothing" to describe a perfect tense situation (ie interchangeable for "haven't seen anything"). There's something about "I've seen nothing" that sounds off.

So we've already passed the right point, and yet we saw nothing...I simply can't understand it!

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alternative:

So we've already passed the right point, and yet we've seen nothing...I simply can't understand it!

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Adding the contraction of "we've seen" as opposed to using the full perfect of "we have seen" does alot for the natural sound of the structure. Both are grammatically correct as far as I can tell from the context but the flow is better served by contracting the perfect. As nice gaijin pointed out, "we haven't seen anything" would also sound fine. Again, the contraction helps it, I think.

The reason they might have said "we saw nothing" is that in this context, after passing whatever thing they passed, they only had one chance to look for whatever thing they were looking for. The experience of seeing was done just once, so they "saw nothing". There's also a bit more urgency to "we saw", like it happened just moments ago. The perfect is often used to describe an experience, a sum of experiences, etc. It's a bit more grand and in a hurried situation I think native speakers fall back on simple tenses. The way its written, I'm also inclined to think they're looking for one specific thing that they have foreknowledge of, as opposed to waiting for something to happen.

bakaKanadajin said:

The reason they might have said "we saw nothing" is that in this context, after passing whatever thing they passed, they only had one chance to look for whatever thing they were looking for. The experience of seeing was done just once, so they "saw nothing". There's also a bit more urgency to "we saw", like it happened just moments ago. The perfect is often used to describe an experience, a sum of experiences, etc. It's a bit more grand and in a hurried situation I think native speakers fall back on simple tenses. The way its written, I'm also inclined to think they're looking for one specific thing that they have foreknowledge of, as opposed to waiting for something to happen.

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^ That's a good way of putting it. I was thinking also that the sentences carry kind of implications (if that makes any sense ) like this:
"We've seen nothing [yet]"
"We saw nothing [then]"
.. so the first one kind of implies "we've seen nothing when we expected to, but there's still the possibility that we might", and the second one implies "we saw nothing at that point, and are highly unlikely to see something now".
Which is basically what bakaKanadajin was saying, only he put it better.

The translators probably used "saw" because it conforms more to everyday average speech, which usually doesn't follow exact grammatical rules. "Saw" sounds more natural to me in speech, but it would sound a little odd in a Doctoral Thesis.

So we've already passed the right point, and yet we've seen nothing...I simply can't understand it!

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This sentence sounds very "proper" as though the character has perfect english. One would expect such propriety from the upper crust. Using "saw" sounds more rustic. So it's possible that the word choice may have only related to characterization.

Neko et all,

Present Perfect in English can be confusing, but it can be easily compared to Japanese.

(1) "We saw nothing."

--> Nani mo minakatta.

(2) "We haven't seen anything"

--> Nani mo mite nai.

The worst way to study Present Perfect is to try to analyze it. The best way to study it is to find Japanese-English equivalents. Feel free to give examples that are difficult for you.

I could give you a complicated grammatical explanation for the differences between the (1) and (2) English sentences. But it is easier for me to simply ask; what are the differences between the (1) and (2) Japanese sentences?

For those of you out there who teach Present Perfect to Japanese people, do not try to explain Present Perfect. Merely give equivalent examples in Japanese. This system works well.

日本語で失礼します！
とっても参考になり、はっきり理解できました。
ありがとう！
またよろしくね！

日本語どうぞ。
だいたいＪＲＥＦの人は、英語の先生だから、英語の質問がすき。

Neko-san!

I am only too happy to help. I have a bunch more English-Japanese Present Perfect equivalents, if you would like to see them.