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Je n'ai jamais été en Chine.

2.Je ai été en Chine. [ I have been to China.]

We say I have been to China even if you visited China 100 or 200 years ago.
It sounds strange, though.
I have been to China is present perfect sentence; so it doesn't qualify for a past event. However, this is an obvious exemption to the grammar rule.

My question is on the French version.

Je ai été en Chine.
Is it fine to say the above even if you visited France 500 years ago?
French way of looking at this may be different than English.

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Permalink Reply by Marc Vonhalmen on July 7, 2009 at 8:22pm

It would be "J'ai été en Chine". Better: "J'ai déjà été Chine." Or also: "Je suis déjà allé en Chine". And yes, it works, even if it was 500 years ago.
By the way, it's more commun to use the verb "aller" for that kind of sentence than the verb "être".
Adding the word "déjà" is better, because if you say "J'ai été en Chine" or "Je suis allé en Chine", it sounds like you just came back from China.

In both case you can say:
J'ai été en Chine il y a 500 ans.
Je suis allé en Chine il y a 500 ans.
(both sentences have the same meaning. In English, "been" and "gone" have a different meaning in this context, but not in French)

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 7, 2009 at 9:46pm

Thanks Mark

So you prefer the verb 'aller' in this context.

Whether you returned from China last week or 5 years ago, you will always say I have been to China.
Grammatically speaking the present perfect tense is inaccurate to use for a past event.

You touched on the adverb 'déjà'. Generally it means 'already' in English.
I think it goes well with the present perfect in English.

1. I have already told you the truth.
.....................................................................................................
J'ai été en Chine il y a 500 ans.
Je suis allé en Chine il y a 500 ans.

I visited China about 500 years ago.

For me the following sound odd.
I have been to China about 500 years ago.
[ Because the present perfect tense combined with what you did 500 years ago.]

I have eaten an apple yesterday. ( Not correct.)
I ate an apple yesterday/20 years ago. ( Correct)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 8, 2009 at 6:23am

Remember the choice of tense is about how you view a particular event, not about how many seconds/years/millennia ago it physically took place.

English speakers (and indeed, speakers of some other European languages that also have this distinction) tend to use the present-perfect construction to highlight that the event in question has "present relevance". For example, when somebody asks "Have you been to China?", they're essentially asking something equivalent to "Do you know anywhere in China?"-- i.e. you can pretty much rephrase the present perfect with a present tense.

N.B. There are regional and ideolectal differences between the use of past tenses, though (in English and other languages). For example, in British English if you ask "Did you ever smoke?", that implies that the person in question has no future possibility of smoking, whereas this implication doesn't appear to be so strong in US English.