Thanks for your question. Ever and never can be easily confused when they are used as time expressions to talk about whether an event happened – or didn't happen!

Look at these sentences:

- Have you ever seen an elephant?
- No, I have never seen an elephant.

In the first sentence, ever means 'at any time'. The question: Have you ever seen an elephant? means, 'have you, at any time in your life, seen an elephant?' And in the answer, No, I have never seen an elephant, 'never' means 'at no time'. I have at no time in my life seen an elephant.

So, ever is used in questions and never is found in negative sentences. You may find ever in negative sentences like this:

No, I haven't ever seen an elephant.

But it's more common to shorten not ever to never – I've never seen an elephant. And we can add ever to never to emphasise the never like this:

I've never ever seen an elephant.
I'm never ever going to speak to him again.

We can also use ever - meaning 'at any time' in positive sentences with if like this:

If you are ever in town you must come and visit me.
If she ever found out I killed her goldfish and bought a replacement, she'd kill me.

And we can also use ever in a relative clause following a superlative structure like this:

It was the most boring film I had ever seen.

Again, ever means 'at any time'.

So thanks for your question Brinsesa. I hope you never ever have any confusion with these words ever again! But if you ever do have trouble, remember you can visit us again at bbclearningenglish.com.

Catherine