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Some examples of what I'm trying to convey:

  • I have never heard that song before.

  • I have never heard of Miyazawa Kenji

  • I have never heard of that before?

  • I've never heard of that store?

What verb should be used? Is there a common form I can adopt? Is there an equivalent phrase in Japanese?

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  • Watching anime makes you familiar with lots of forms. You probably know Japanese better than me, but as an otaku, I know more Japanese sentence forms than you do :) Dec 13, 2011 at 19:18

2 Answers 2

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It can be translated as 聞いたことがない

聞いたことのない歌です。
宮崎賢治のことを聞いたことがありません。

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  • Is this grammatical? 宮崎賢治は聞いたことがありません。 Dec 17, 2011 at 12:59
  • @StuartWoodward It may be grammatical, but sounds weird to me. It should mean "Miyasaki Keijin has not heard of (something)", but not "(I) haven't heard of Miyasaki Kenji.".
    – fefe
    Dec 18, 2011 at 12:28
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For "I have never___" you take the verb, put it in the past tense, then add ことがない or ことがありません.

The direct translation is something like "I don't have X experience" or "I've never done X thing"

So, for 聞く, we go:

聞く --> 聞いた --> 聞いたこと --> 聞いたことがありません

or to answer your initial question:

その歌{うた}を聞いたことがありません。

For "I've never heard of that store" you can't really use this expression, you'd have to say something more like:

その店ぜんぜん知らない。

"I don't know anything about that store"

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  • 2
    I think it would be acceptable to say you'd never heard about that store before: あの店のことを聞いたことがない。 There's two こと in there, but they're performing different jobs.
    – Questioner
    Dec 8, 2011 at 5:35
  • @Dave Yeah that works too. I don't think it sounds repetitive, the usages are so different. Dec 8, 2011 at 17:12
  • What about yet? How would you say yet. As in i haven't heard the professors lecture yet?
    – Myeong
    Dec 18, 2011 at 1:25
  • @Myeong You would add まだ before the verb; there may be other ways, but that's the easiest :) Dec 18, 2011 at 2:15

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