DESCRIBING HABITS

Present and Past

PRESENT HABITS
When you talk about facts that you think are
generally true, we use the PRESENT
SIMPLE:
e.g. The Earth revolves around the sun
When you want to talk about things that
generally tend to happen without suggesting
that they always, inevitably happen,you use
WILL
e.g. You can tell her sth one minute and
shell have forgotten in the next
PAST HABITS
You use WOULD to talk about habits, tendencies
or characteristic behaviour in the past (you can
also use the simple past, apart from the options
mentioned in your textbook)
e.g. When I was young my father would sit
down/sat down with me...and we would go/went
to the movies...
EXCEPTION: WOULD cannot be used instead of
the SIMPLE PAST when it is part of a
Conditional Structure:
e.g. I appreciated her a lot, she would always
help me/she always helped me, my life there
would have been (cannot be changed) very
dull without her
PECULIARITIES IN THE USES OF
WOULD
-You cannot use WOULD to refer to a
specific event in the past, you use the
SIMPLE PAST for this.
e.g. My father would help me with my
work last night
e.g. My father helped me with my work
last night
USED TO AND WOULD
Both are used to talk about tendencies in the
past, past habits, maybe the only
difference being that USED TO is much
more common in speech.
HOWEVER, we use only USED TO and not
WOULD, when we talk about past states
that have changed.
e.g. The factory used to be in the city centre
(but not anymore)