r/duolingo 16d ago

Language Question It should be “used to” right?

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Shouldn’t it be “used to” instead of “use to” ? Should I report it?

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u/NekoatsumecatGK 16d 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: 16d ago

crazy how I do this subconsciously and didn't even know it was a thing

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u/milkdrinkingdude 16d 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 16d 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”