I haven't seen you in a long time. How have you been.

[tufguy]

If I meet someone after a long time can I say "I haven't seen you in a long time. How have you been?" or "We haven't met in a long while. How have you been?"

Can we also say "I didn't see you for a long time. Where were you?"?

When we say "Haven't seen you in a long while" it means we have finally met that person.

 

[GoesStation]

If I meet someone after a long time can I say "I haven't seen you in a long time. How have you been?":tick: or "We haven't met in a long while. How have you been?":cross:

Can we also say "I didn't see you for a long time. Where were you?"?:cross: (The simple past doesn't work here.)

When we say "Haven't seen you in a long while" it means we have finally met that person. :cross:

In this context, we only use meet to mean "encounter for the first time". We often use it to mean "get together in a specified place": You're going to the concert too? Great! I'll meet you there. Let's meet at the concession stand at eight thirty.


When a quoted sentence ends the sentence it's quoted in, don't repeat the final punctuation.

 

[tufguy]

In this context, we only use meet to mean "encounter for the first time". We often use it to mean "get together in a specified place": You're going to the concert too? Great! I'll meet you there. Let's meet at the concession stand at eight thirty.


When a quoted sentence ends the sentence it's quoted in, don't repeat the final punctuation.

So only first sentence can be used. Other sentences don't work at all. Why, could you please tell it to me? Because if we say "I didn't see you for a while where were you" it means we didn't meet that person for a while. Why is it incorrect? Is there any other thing that we can say?

 

[emsr2d2]

Please add all the missing punctuation between the word "Because" and the word "incorrect".

 

[GoesStation]

So only the first sentence can be used. The other sentences don't work at all. [STRIKE]Why, c[/STRIKE] Could you please tell [STRIKE]it to[/STRIKE] me why? Because if we say "I didn't see you for a while. Where were you?" it means we haven't seen [STRIKE]didn't meet[/STRIKE] that person for a while. Why is it incorrect? Is there any other thing that we can say?

See above. Note that I changed "didn't meet" to haven't seen, changing both the tense and the verb. As I said in a previous post, we don't use "meet" to mean encounter except when it's for the first time (I'd like you to meet my friend Deepak) or when you're arranging to get together (Let's meet at the concert!). We use the present perfect ("haven't seen") to describe something that happened in the past at an indefinite time.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's your lucky night, tufguy. GoesStation just fixed all those punctuation errors for you before you had a chance to do it yourself as I requested.

 

[GoesStation]

It's your lucky night, tufguy. GoesStation just fixed all those punctuation errors for you before you had a chance to do it yourself as I requested.

Sorry. Tufguy actually had edited the post with missing punctuation after you posted your request for him to do so. I thought he had added a few bits of punctuation but had missed quite a lot. Now that I think about it, his edit posted only five minutes after your post and probably had nothing to do with it.

 

[tufguy]

It's your lucky night, tufguy. GoesStation just fixed all those punctuation errors for you before you had a chance to do it yourself as I requested.

Sorry for those mistakes. The temperature was so high my brain wasn't working yesterday. I somehow managed to reply.