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Yesterday I sent my friend a useful gift in online game. Today I can see he has not accepted it yet. Which sentence is grammatically correct and most natural in American English?

  1. "You didn't use the Gift I gave you!"
  2. "You didn't use the Gift I had given you!"
  3. "You haven't used the Gift I gave you!"
  4. "You haven't used the Gift I had given you!"

Somehow option 1 seems most natural, and yet is the least consistent with what I remember from English classes. Option 4 should be grammatically correct, but 2 perfect tenses in one sentence seem a bit odd.

RegDwigнt
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JockX
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1 Answers1

8

You didn't use the gift I gave you.

could imply that you thought the other party was supposed to use the gift at a specific point of time (or when a certain event occurred), and they have lost the opportunity.

You haven't used the gift I gave you.

implies that so far the other party has not used the gift, but there's a chance they still will.

Zoot
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Armen Ծիրունյան
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