Sunday, November 5, 2017

Past habits: Used to and would

Used to and would are both used to describe something that happened regularly in the past but doesn't happen any longer.
Used to
  • We used to live in Paris when I was a kid.
  • There didn’t use to be a hospital there. When was it built?
  • I used to go swimming every Thursday when I was at school.

Would
  • Every Saturday I would go on a long bike ride.
  • My teachers would always say “Sit down and shut up!”

Often either ‘would’ or ‘used to’ is possible. Both of these sentences are possible.
  • Every Saturday, I would go on a long bike ride.
  • Every Saturday I used to go on a long bike ride.
However, only ‘used to’ is possible when we talk about past states.
  • We used to live in New York when I was a kid.
  • We would live in New York when I was a kid.

 Would is not used with stative verbs such as love, be, understand, and feel. Compare these two sentences with the stative verb love:  
  1. When I was a student, I used to love sleeping late on the weekends. (natural and grammatical)
  2. *When I was a student, I would love sleeping late on weekends. (awkward and ungrammatical)


 Would is not generally used in its negative and interrogative forms when talking about past habits.


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