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Using "Used to" and "Would" in Past Tense

The document discusses different ways to talk about past habits or repeated actions in English. It explains that "used to" is used to talk about past states or repeated actions that no longer happen, such as "I used to go swimming every Thursday." "Would" can also be used to talk about repeated past actions, as in "Every Saturday I would go on a long bike ride." While both "would" and "used to" can sometimes be used interchangeably, only "used to" refers to past states, like "We used to live in New York."

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120 views1 page

Using "Used to" and "Would" in Past Tense

The document discusses different ways to talk about past habits or repeated actions in English. It explains that "used to" is used to talk about past states or repeated actions that no longer happen, such as "I used to go swimming every Thursday." "Would" can also be used to talk about repeated past actions, as in "Every Saturday I would go on a long bike ride." While both "would" and "used to" can sometimes be used interchangeably, only "used to" refers to past states, like "We used to live in New York."

Uploaded by

tarubi53
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Past habit – used to/would/past simple

When we talk about things that happened in the past but don’t happen anymore we can do it in
different ways.

Used to
 We used to live in New York when I was a kid.
 There didn’t use to be a petrol station there. When was it built
 ?
We can use ‘used to’ to talk about past states ….
 I used to go swimming every Thursday when I was at school.
 I used to smoke but I gave up a few years ago.
… or we can use ‘used to’ to talk about repeated past actions

Remember that ‘used to’ is only for past states/actions that don’t happen now – we can’t use it for
things that still happen now. Also, ‘used to + infinitive’ should not be confused with ‘be/get used
to + ‘ing’ form’ – this is covered in a separate section.

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

We can use ‘would’ to talk about repeated past actions.

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.

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