EXPRESSING HABIT

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a habit is a repeated action, something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it. Therefore, let us look at different ways on how to express habit in English. – Let’s determine your future. (wink)

Present habit

  • Present Simple (the most common form):
    I always visit my grandmother on Thursdays.
  • Present Continuous with always to express annoying habit:
    She’s always asking me for money.
  • Unstressed ‘ll to express typical behaviour:
    He’ll spend hours doing nothing.
  • Stressed will to express irritation:
    He will keep asking me for money.

Past habit

  • used to + infinitive particularly emphasising the idea of ‘no longer true’:
    When I was young, I used to go to the local barber’s.

Compared to:

Once, when I was young, I went to London. (used to cannot be used, because this is one finished past event)

When I was young, I went to the local barber’s. (possible, but unclear – does it mean once or often?)

  • would preferably when we want to be ‘nostalgic’:
    Those days in Rome were wonderful. We’d get up with the sunrise, then we’d spend the day…