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Past Habits: Used To vs Would

This document discusses different ways to talk about past habits and repeated actions in English. It explains that "used to" is used for past states or actions that no longer happen, while "would" can refer to repeated past actions. The past simple tense can also be used for past habitual or repeated actions as well as ones that happened once. The document provides examples for how to properly use "used to", "would", and the past simple tense when talking about the past.

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Svetlana Risteska
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566 views2 pages

Past Habits: Used To vs Would

This document discusses different ways to talk about past habits and repeated actions in English. It explains that "used to" is used for past states or actions that no longer happen, while "would" can refer to repeated past actions. The past simple tense can also be used for past habitual or repeated actions as well as ones that happened once. The document provides examples for how to properly use "used to", "would", and the past simple tense when talking about the past.

Uploaded by

Svetlana Risteska
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
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.

We can use ‘used to’ to talk about past states

 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

Would

 Every Saturday I would go on a long bike ride.

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.

Past simple

 We went/used to go/would go to the same beach every summer.

We can use the past simple in the same way as ‘used to’ and ‘would’ to talk about repeated past
actions.

 I had/used to have a dog called Charlie.

We can also use the past simple for past states.

 I went to Egypt in 1988.


However, if something happened only once we can’t use ‘used to’ or ‘would’ – we must use the past
simple.

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