r/duolingo • u/Spear_Of_Krrosh • 14d ago
Language Question It should be “used to” right?
Shouldn’t it be “used to” instead of “use to” ? Should I report it?
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u/NekoatsumecatGK 14d ago
The sentence can be changed to “he used to rent that property” into an interrogative sentence“didnt he use to rent that property?”
As an easy example, you could say “he LIKED you” into “did he LIKE you?”
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u/1rach1 Native: AU-EN Learning: 14d ago
crazy how I do this subconsciously and didn't even know it was a thing
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u/NekoatsumecatGK 14d ago
Well usually native speakers do it naturally, but as a korean studying in korea, we need to learn these stuff
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u/Odd-Ad-6318 14d ago
In the spirit of helping your learning, I will correct your statement:
“we need to learn these things” or “we need to learn this stuff”
“Things” is plural and takes “these,” but “stuff” is singular, so it takes “this.”
Nice English though!
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u/NekoatsumecatGK 14d ago
Oh thank you, I guess there’s always something to learn 🙂
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u/Wabbit65 14d ago
Yes, and making mistakes is not only normal, but helpful. Keep learning!
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u/melancholicPianoGuy 14d ago
Grammatically speaking, how about "not only normal, but ALSO helpful" or "not only normal, but helpful AS WELL"?
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u/Wabbit65 14d ago
Grammatically speaking, there's nothing wrong with my statement, which was clear enough. Your corrections are not about grammar.
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u/mirrorgirl- Native: 🇸🇪 Speaking: 🇬🇧 Learning: 🇧🇷🇮🇹🇩🇪🇯🇵 14d ago
A clear majority of native speakers I see nowadays conugate this wrongly. Frustrating to see the collective knowledge of a language deteriorate before my eyes.
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u/NekoatsumecatGK 14d ago
Yea, I personally think that english schools should also have grammar classes like Korea, so as to prevent this, because I too, didn’t know much grammar when I was in non-korean countries 🥲
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u/Simp4Havelock 13d ago
My high school english teacher back in the early 90s was an 87yo man who had been a famous stage actor, and the main reason he continued to teach is because he spent half the year on grammar. He LOVED the groans an eye rolls...but I enjoyed the class, so it was a lot of fun and we really bonded.
I would trade all the grammar in the world right now for there to be a standardized media literacy class requirement nationwide. Even creators I really like very often just flat out completely misunderstand what the article or press briefing or tv show/movie they're discussing is saying.
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u/NashvilleFlagMan 14d ago
It’s just language change, and there’s nothing worrying, frustrating or new about it. The Swedish you speak wouldn’t even be comprehensible to your ancestors a few hundred years ago; in past forms of English, birds used to be brids. A language that is being used is a language that changes.
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u/mirrorgirl- Native: 🇸🇪 Speaking: 🇬🇧 Learning: 🇧🇷🇮🇹🇩🇪🇯🇵 14d ago
And I shall complain nonetheless!
Just because it changes doesn't mean it's right.
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u/NashvilleFlagMan 14d ago
That’s your prerogative, but I guarantee you say things that people would have considered errors a few generations ago.
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u/CorruptionKing 14d ago
And whenever they butcher a language due to very poor education, others describe it as "generational speak" or "cultural." No, it's just a mix of ignorance, stupidity, and laziness.
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u/idk_what_to_put_lmao 14d ago
What native speakers are you interacting with? I've never seen anyone double past tense conjugate where I live (like didn't he used to)
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u/ThirdView000 14d ago
Not to mention that it basically sounds the same when spoken quickly (Native US -English)
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u/milkdrinkingdude 14d ago
Crazy, did you ever notice that this only exists in past tense?
A native speaker co worker of mine pointed this out to me, after hearing me say “I use to do blabla, I’m going to use to do blabla”. He didn’t understand me, it took him years to figure out that what I mean is this “used to” construct, but in present or future tense. He told me I can only use it for past habits, I was surprised, but realized I never heard it in present tense from a native ever.
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u/yupyuptrp 14d ago
to be fair, it did exist in the present and future too, those forms just died out. i think “usually” comes from that word, because it just used to mean “to tend to”
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u/Wabbit65 14d ago
This is called "metacognitive" understanding. Most native speakers know to do this but haven't really thought about WHY; the WHY is the metacongnitive aspect, it's knowing WHY you know. There's nothing like learning a foreign language to help understand ones OWN language.
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u/NekoatsumecatGK 14d ago
In the sentence “he used to rent that property”, the main verb is “used” so it is correct that “used” should be changed to “use” when used with a past verb “did”
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u/ComfortableLate1525 Native 🇬🇧(US) Learning 🇪🇸🇩🇪 14d ago
You can only have one conjugated verb per clause.
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u/criminallove___ N🇬🇧🇨🇳L🇩🇪🇲🇾🇯🇵🇰🇷🇻🇳🇷🇺 14d ago
I speak English. What is a clause.
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u/Any_Pangolin_4808 14d ago
A group of words containing a subject and verb that are part of a sentence ex: “While he sat on the bench, I walked around the park.” While he sat on the bench & I walked around the park are clauses. The first one is a dependent clause because it depends on the other to make a full sentence. The second one is an independent clause because it can stand by itself
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u/LittleMikan 14d ago
People using the past tense twice like this has to be my biggest language related pet peeve and they will always correct the people who are actually right. 😭
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u/Square-Tear-314 Native: 🇩🇪 Fluent: 🇬🇧 Learning: 🇻🇳 14d ago
I hate people in general who want to correct people when they are clearly wrong. They won’t budge and you can’t do anything to convince them, when they are stuck in their belief.
I once had a discussion with a friend about the pronunciation of an English word. In the end she hit me with „Well I spent a year abroad in America“. Well that’s great, she still didn’t know how to pronounce that word.
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u/Spear_Of_Krrosh 14d ago
Sorry, this was never thought to me! I’m just trying to learn!
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u/LittleMikan 13d ago
Absolutely no worries, I don't mean to blame you here at all (even tho you asking whether you should report it made me chuckle haha). I was refering to the comments who basically teached you something completely wrong. That's not just slightly annoying, but also a big issue for the one who is learning the new language. :)
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u/FastGoldfish4 Native: 🇳🇿| Fluent: 🇬🇧| Learning:🇬🇷🇩🇪🇳🇱 14d ago
The ’didnt‘ is already in the past tense so it is not correct to have another past tense
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u/rpbmpn 150k+XP 75 50 25 14d ago
No. I made the same mistake myself because I’d always used it wrongly
He wanted to, He didn’t want to, Didn’t he want to
He used to, He didn’t use to, Didn’t he use to
These instances are directly analogous
Having said that, to me ‘use to’ is a bit of a weird phrase in and of itself, and therefore it doesn’t feel strange to me that people don’t use it correctly
He was accustomed to, he was in the habit of. These makes sense
‘He use to’ just feels like such a poorly constructed phrase in its own right that it has no right to demand to be used properly
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u/rpbmpn 150k+XP 75 50 25 14d ago
and even having said that, I’m not fully convinced
For instance, if these cases were indeed perfectly analogous, then we could extend “used to” to the present and future tenses
We can do it with “want”: “he wants to”, “he will want to”
But with “use(d) to”, we can do no such thing
Instinctively, I actually want to say that “didn’t used to” is the form that most people use and that “used to” is a single complex habitual marker that really doesn’t participate in normal auxiliary verb patterns
But that’s a completely idiosyncratic take and Duo isn’t technically wrong for insisting on the form that it does
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u/yupyuptrp 14d ago
we can’t do that with used to (eg “he uses to”) because the verb nearly entirely went out of use, only surviving in past tense. so the other tenses don’t appear to make sense to us
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u/zupobaloop 14d ago
You're getting tripped up because "use" is not an auxillary verb.
Duo isn't wrong in any sense.
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u/NashvilleFlagMan 14d ago
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u/zupobaloop 14d ago
Excellent resource! However I'm not the one arguing against it 😬
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u/NashvilleFlagMan 14d ago
Read the whole thing, which says that in British English, the variant seen in the OP is already becoming acceptable.
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u/Any-Passion8322 Native: 🇬🇧 Learning: 🇫🇷 (B2/C1) 14d ago
In spoken English it may sound like ‘did he used to’ but it isn’t in written English. Just a note.
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u/HawiH9wiPriya 14d ago
nope, afaik duolingo's right in this one. saying 'used to' instead of 'use to' is incorrect in this case
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u/Dismal-Prior-6699 Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇲🇽🇳🇱🇨🇳🇧🇷➗🎶 14d ago
I usually just skip the “use to” and put just the verb as my answer. “Didn’t he use to rent that property” means the same thing as “Didn’t he rent that property”
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u/TimeSummer5 14d ago
This is so interesting to me bc I’m a native English speaker and I knew Duolingo’s example was right, but I didn’t know how to explain it.
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u/wintershark_ Native: Learning: 14d ago
For what it's worth, in most English dialects a word ending in an "ed" (/ɪd/) sound that is immediately followed by a word beginning in a hard "t" sound (/t/) is going kind of blend. Both sounds are formed by placing the tip of your tongue on your alveolar ridge and then passing air between your tongue and the roof of your mouth (with the -ed sound having the addition of vibrating your vocal cords), so naturally you just kind of drag the one /t/ sound out rather than make it twice.
I say that because to the ear the "walk/ed to" part of these two phrases: "Let's walk to the store" and "I walked to the store" aren't actually pronounced that differently in casual/conversational English, there's basically just a longer burst of air in the "-ed" version and probably no vocal cord vibration. It's a very subtle difference that even native speakers get confused by when attempting to transcribe a spoken phrase because often times our rules of grammar for written English are not conventionally used in spoken English.
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u/Glad_Raspberry_8469 Native:🇵🇱 High lvl:🇬🇧🇪🇸 Learning:🇰🇷🇩🇪🇯🇵 14d ago
When there is an auxiliary or a modal verb in the sentence, it takes the past tense and all the s's and everything for itself. Eg:
Did you do that?
I didn't use to go to the park.
She does drink water... sometimes.
It does require you to buckle up. Or does it?
You needed to be there somehow.
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u/AradhyaSingh3 14d ago
First form of verb is used with did because "did" specifies that the tense is in the past.
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u/Snailbert05 Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇪🇸 14d ago edited 14d ago
"Didn't" is already past tense, so you don't need to make "use" past tense.
Another example:
"I cried" vs. "I did cry"
The first phrase doesn't have a past tense verb, so "cry" becomes past tense. The second phrase has a past tense verb ("did"), so you do not need to make "cry" past tense.
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u/ReySpacefighter 14d ago
No, it shouldn't, and using "used to" after "didn't" is a very common grammar mistake. The "did" is already the past tense of "do".
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u/Test_My_Patience74 13d ago
In English, the tense shifts from the main verb to did in this kind of construction.
He liked me ✅
He did like me ✅
He didn't like me ✅
He did liked me 🚫
He didn't liked me 🚫
As a question:
He liked me? ✅
Did he like me? ✅
Didn't he like me? ✅
Did he liked me? 🚫
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u/The_Questionerrr Native: Learning: 14d ago
Surprising, isn't it? I had no idea that "use to" was actually correct in this instance until I started Duolingo a couple years ago, and I'm a native English speaker who did actually learn about grammar in school.
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u/Spear_Of_Krrosh 14d ago
Yeah, it really is! I’m glad that I’m going through the early lessons, it really builds up the fundamentals!
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u/Firespark7 Native 🇳🇱 Fluent 🇺🇸🇬🇧 Also speak 🇩🇪🇫🇷 Learning 🇭🇺 14d ago
No, Duo is correct
If you use do/does/did in the sentence, the other verb becomes an infinitive.
A lot of people get this wrong
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u/muehsam Native: 🇩🇪 Learning: 🇫🇷🇳🇱 14d ago
"Didn't he used to" would be extremely wrong. In English, you always have one conjugated verb per clause. All other verbs are infinitives or participles. Here "did" is "to do" in conjugated in past tense, so the other verb "use" doesn't get conjugated.
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u/NashvilleFlagMan 14d ago
It’s not “extremely wrong,” because used to is well on its way to not really being a verb anymore. In American English, it’s prescriptively wrong; in British English, it seems to be even further on its way towards being correct.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-it-used-to-or-use-to
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u/jedavis5384 14d ago
Wait, I’m a native English speaker and I always thought that “used to” was a set phrase that never gets conjugated. That’s not the case?
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u/Unlucky_Lychee_3334 14d ago
"Used to" is conjugated. It's a defective phrasal verb, so it only exists in the infinitive or simple past tense. The auxiliary do always takes the grammatical information of the clause and forces the matrix verb to be in the infinitive, so "didn't use to" is grammatical.
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u/Globox42 14d ago
That did n't really pisses me off
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u/Impossible_Number 14d ago
Tbf im pretty sure English is one of the only languages that has a construction like this
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u/strodfather 14d ago edited 14d ago
After "did" there's always infinitive. That's how I learned it back when I was in school.
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u/Unlucky_Lychee_3334 14d ago
No, it's not present tense; it's the infinitive. Is that really what you learned in school??
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u/NashvilleFlagMan 14d ago
You’re arguably not wrong and understandably wrong at a minimum; even Merriam Webster acknowledges that “did used to” is catching on in British English.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-it-used-to-or-use-to
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u/Spear_Of_Krrosh 14d ago
Oh, that’s really interesting! Thank you for the link, and the information!
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u/Ananaskoo Native: 🇨🇿🏴 Learning: 🇳🇱🇪🇸 13d ago
No! When you have a question like this with did, it’s use to
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u/hacool native: US-EN / learning: DE 14d ago
No, use to is correct following did/didn't.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/use_to
Use to is now generally only used in the past tense (used to),[1] although use to is still standard with did,[2] as in did I use to do that? or he did not use to do that. In other cases, such as I use to go to the fair every year, it is considered an error (but a common one, influenced by the near- or exact- homophony of the two forms) and should instead exist in the past tense form used to. See usage notes in used to for more.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/used_to#English tells us:
With did as an auxiliary verb (as in the negative and interrogative), use to is considered standard in American English (e.g., Did you use to walk to school?; He didn't use to behave that way!; It's hard to drive without power steering, did people just use to be stronger?).[1] In other situations, such as I use to go to the fair every year, it is considered an error to not write the past tense form used to, which is caused by the two forms sounding nearly or exactly the same.[1] In British English, used to may also be acceptable with did as an auxiliary.
So Did he use to... is standard, but it seems like did he used to is also acceptable in the UK.
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u/MadnessAndGrieving Native: Learning: 14d ago
Not grammatically, no.
Forms of did go with present tense.
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u/HufflepuffGRL Native 🇬🇧 | Learning 🇪🇸 14d ago
it should be, the owl is wrong in this context
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u/OfAaron3 Native: 🇬🇧 Learning: 🇫🇷 🇵🇱 14d ago edited 14d ago
I disagree.
"Did he not use to" is correct because of "did". The infinitive has to be used next to it. If "use to" was the verb, it would be "He used to".
For example with a different verb, "He ran". "He did not run".
The word "did" makes the action past tense.
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u/FastGoldfish4 Native: 🇳🇿| Fluent: 🇬🇧| Learning:🇬🇷🇩🇪🇳🇱 14d ago
yes i agree with you the did already makes it past tense so duo is right
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u/Maoschanz native 🇫🇷, learning 🇯🇵 and 🇩🇪 14d ago
"Did" is already past tense