Past habit – used to/would/past simple 過去的習慣—used

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

當我們談論發生在過去而現在不再發生的事情的時候，我們能用以下幾種表達方式。

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 ….

我們能用used to去表示過去的狀態。

… or we can use ‘used to’ to talk about repeated past actions

或者用used to去談論重複的過去的動作。

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.

請記住，used to只能用於現在不再發生的狀態或者動作，我們不能用它形容現在還在發生的事情。同樣的，used to+動詞不定式不要和be/get used to + ‘ing’ 形式混淆，這個區別會在其他章節裏涉及。

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.

我們用would來談論重複的過去的動作。

Often either ‘would’ or ‘used to’ is possible. Both of these sentences are possible.

一般來講，would和used to都是可以用於談論過去的動作，下面兩個句子都是說的過去的。

However, only ‘used to’ is possible when we talk about past states.

但是，只有“used to”是可以用於談論過去的狀態。

Past simple

一般過去時

• 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.

一般過去時可以跟used to和would同樣的用法去說明過去重複的動作。

We can also use the past simple for past states.

我們同樣可以用一般過去時表示過去的狀態。

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

但是，如果過去的某事是隻發生了一次的，我們不能用used to或者would，我們必須用一般過去時。