Past Habits and States with used to and would

 Juvenile - Illustration - Children's gardening 1 - small

Here’s an excerpt from a well known short story for kids:

The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde

“Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden. It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. ‘How happy we are here!’ they cried to each other.”

Listen to the rest of this story that speaks of sharing, companionship and selflessness. (scroll down the page a bit to the stream audiobox, choose the story and click on play )  

Do you recognize the function of the highlighted syntax?

FUNCTION

We use USED TO to talk about things in the past which we don’t do now or are not happening now and they were past habits or states or repeated actions.

  • We used to live downtown but we moved to the suburbs a few years ago.
  • I used to play football every afternoon when I was at school.
  • There didn’t use to be a supermarket here.
  • Did you use to watch “Thundercats” when you were a child?

We also use WOULD about situations in the past, which are finished now. However, we use WOULD about actions or situations which happened again and again. WOULD cannot be used about past states.

  • The children would go and play in the Giant’s garden every afternoon.
  • They would stop their games in order to listen to the birds.
  • ·        They would be very happy.    

FORM

(affirmative)                    subject             +                used  +  to  +  infinitive

(interrogative)    did  +  subject             +                 use  +  to  +  infinitive ?

(negative)                        subject  +  did  +  not   +   use  +  to  +  infinitive

PRACTICE

Look at these relevant pages here and here

 

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