I'm not a native speaker. I have some question on the grammar of present perfect tense. Is this sentence self-contradictory?
1 Answer
We don't use never with a bounded time period such as this year.
We do use
- "... I have not been there this year" (typically means you have been there, just not this year)
- "... I have never been there"
We do use it with completely unbounded time (ever) or partially bound (before X/after X)
- "I have never been there ever" (emphatic)
- "I have never been there before this year" (but I went this year)
- "I have never been there until this year" (I went this year)
- "He never went there after 1956 (implies he went before then)
This is standard English; note that non-standard variants vary in this matter.