nunca
/ˈnuŋka/
Translation
never, ever
Examples
Australia.
I have never been to Australia.
.
I would never do that again.
, .
Better late than never, they say.
.
I never thought I would find her again.
.
This would never have happened with more care.
Nunca follows the same double-negation rule as nada: it can either precede the verb with no "no" ("Nunca llego tarde") or follow the verb with "no" before it ("No llego nunca tarde"). Both patterns are grammatically correct; placing nunca before the verb for emphasis is slightly more formal.
Nunca and jamás are near-synonyms but not perfectly interchangeable. Jamás is more emphatic and literary; "nunca jamás" (never ever) is the intensified collocation. In affirmative questions and conditional sentences, both can mean "ever": "¿Has estado alguna vez en Japón?" is more common than "¿Has estado nunca en Japón?" though both are used.
Related words
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