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聞いたことない！

I'm still confused about the meaning of こと. But I think it means "this," "that," "about," and maybe "it."

So, this sentence could be translated as: "I've never heard of this/that/it!"

But I'm not very sure ...

alex
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    Related: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/3979/9831 / https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/9432/9831 – Chocolate Jun 29 '18 at 16:55

1 Answers1

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The structure Past verb + こと + ある/ない means that you Ever/Never Performed a given "action".

Examples:

日本に行ったことない。Nihon ni itta koto nai. - I have never been to Japan.

Now a conversation about two people talking about Nattou (Japanese fermented beans)

Person1 - 納豆を食べたことある？Nattou wo tabeta kot aru? - Have you ever eaten Nattou?

Person 2 - はい、納豆を食べたことあるよ！Hai, Nattou wo tabeta koto aru yo! - Yes, I have already eaten Nattou!

So, 聞いたことない probably means "I have never heard about that."!

If you want to be a bit literal "The thing of having heard that does not exist"

Community
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Felipe Chaves de Oliveira
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    Hello. In formal Japanese, is there a が between こと and ない or ある, or ありません and あります? – BIG-95 Jun 29 '18 at 19:25
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    @BIG-95 that's debatable, I used to believe that yes, we should not omit any particles in formal speech, but i've seen people correct me when I wrote something like 行ったことがある to 行ったことある. I guess removing the が removes the focus from 行った and then the focus is the whole sentence. That maybe would be a good question for the site :) – Felipe Chaves de Oliveira Jun 29 '18 at 20:59