Questions & Answers about Ich habe gar nicht geschlafen.
Why are the verbs habe and geschlafen separated like this?
In German, the conversational past tense (the Perfekt) uses a helping verb like habe in the second position of the sentence, and pushes the main action word (geschlafen) to the very end. This creates a bracket around the other words (gar nicht).
I thought past participles end in "-t", like "gespielt". Why does geschlafen end in "-en"?
You just learned that regular (weak) verbs form their past participle with ge- and -t. However, schlafen (to sleep) is an irregular (or "strong") verb. Many common German verbs are irregular and end in -en instead of -t in the past tense. You will just need to memorize these exceptions as you encounter them!
What exactly does gar nicht mean?
By itself, nicht just means "not". Putting gar in front of it makes the negative much stronger. gar nicht is a fixed phrase that translates to "not at all".
Does this sentence translate to "I have not slept at all" or "I did not sleep at all"?
It can be both! In spoken German, this past tense (the Perfekt) is the standard way to talk about the past. English makes a strict difference between "I have not slept" and "I didn't sleep", but German uses habe ... geschlafen for both situations.
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