Grammar reference and practice 8.2

8.2 ■ used to

Affirmative and negative
I You He / She / It We They	used to didn't use to	swim every day.
Questions and short answers
Did	I you he / she / it we they	use to swim every day?	Yes, I did. No, I didn't.

Use

We use used to + infinitive to talk about:

• ■past habits.

  When I was young, I used to play football with my friends every afternoon.

  We used to go sailing in summer, but now we prefer mountain biking.

  What kind of books did you use to read as a child?

  ■past states or situations.

  Jen used to have very long hair, but she had it cut short last year.

  We used to live in Chester, but we moved to Newcastle when I was twelve.

  Anna didn't use to like tea, but now she drinks tea with milk all the time.

We don't use used to for single actions. Compare the following sentences:

We used to go to the theatre a lot when we lived in London.

NOT We used to go to the theatre on my tenth birthday.

Richard used to be very handsome when he was young.

NOT Richard used to be very handsome at the party last night.

We can often use the past simple instead of used to, but we prefer used to when we want to emphasize that the situation today is different.

When Tom was a teenager, he listened to rock music. (He may or may not listen to rock music now.)

When Tom was a teenager, he used to listen to rock music. (He doesn't listen to rock music any more.)

Note that used to doesn't have a present tense form. To talk about present habits and situations, we always use the present simple, NOT use to.

1Write statements and questions with the correct form of used to. 

You need to use normal letters and capital letters correctly in this task. You also need to use correct punctuation.

• 1we / win / every game of cricket ✘

• 2my grandparents / vote / in every local election ✔

• 3the stadium / have / two towers on the roof ?

• 4Dan / be / very confident about his sporting abilities ✘

• 5you / be / a very patient person ?

• 6Ian / spend / every evening at the gym ✔

• 7Laura's dad / be / a civil servant ?

• 8Lee / compete / against much bigger boys in races ✔

• 9how often / Stan and George / play basketball ?

• 10they / get up / early in the morning ✘

 2Complete the sentences with the verbs in the box. Use used to if possible. If not, use the past simple form of the verb. 

You need to use normal letters and capital letters correctly in this task.

MOVE
• dream
• buy
• follow
• be
• want
• build
• own
• win

• 1My parents  a shop. It was very successful.

• 2James  a medal. He was very proud of it.

• 3They  the new school very quickly.

• 4I  of this moment, and now it's finally arrived.

• 5We  the campaign from start to finish.

• 6Sarah  her cousin a beautiful present when she got married.

• 7Back in the 1960s, a lot of students  to change the world.

• 8That's where the post office , over there on the corner.