Depending on the friends you’re sharing the sofa with, you’d say any number of things, but most pobably not the *correct* answer.

Basically that shows a few things:
1. you can seriously mess up a forced choice exercise unless you consider sufficient amounts of data
2. you can’t predict what “real people” will say in a situation, you need to analyze it after it emerges
3. I am all too often cowed by prescriptive grammarians into teaching “correct” grammar, even when I know better.
So, thank you for reading this confessional.

Now to our results:
You watch an old film on TV for the first time. Afterwards, what do you say?

* “This is the first time I’ve seen this film.” You use the present perfect because it’s about your experience so far. (76%, 13 votes)
* “This is the first time I saw this film.” You use the past tense because the film is over. (18%, 3 votes)
* “This is the first time I see this film.” You use the present tense because it’s true now. (6%, 1 vote)

Extra entries:
4. They don’t make films like that anymore. (Chris)
5. Joan, you wouldn’t say any of this, would you?
6. That was the first time I’d seen it. (Nicky)
7. That was the first time I saw that film. I wouldn’t really say that, either. I’d say “What a great film.”