gesehen

Gesehen is the past participle of the German verb sehen, meaning “to see.” In German, past participles are used with auxiliary verbs to form compound tenses, and gesehen is used with haben to form the perfect tenses. For example: Ich habe ihn gesehen (I have seen him), Wir haben den Film gesehen (We have seen the film). The pluperfect uses hatte: Ich hatte ihn gesehen. The future perfect is Ich werde ihn gesehen haben.

As a past participle, gesehen also appears in questions and negatives in everyday speech: Hast du das gesehen? Nein, ich habe es noch nicht gesehen. Because sehen is irregular in simple past (sah), the forms sah and gesehen are not interchangeable; sah is the simple past, while gesehen is the participle used with haben.

Gesehen can also function as a noun in a nominalized form, most commonly as das Gesehene, meaning “the thing seen” or “the sights.” This nouned participle is used in literary or philosophical contexts, or when referring to the material or impressions that have been perceived, as in Das Gesehene bleibt im Gedächtnis.

Usage notes include that gesehen is not used with an intransitive passive; the passive of sehen is formed with werden in its own right (z. B. Das Bild wird gesehen). In everyday language, gesehen is most familiar to learners as the standard past participle for the verb sehen, contrasting with the simple past sah.