Past habit

Question

Could you please correct the sentences?When I was little ,I used to jump in when it's raining ,the moment my father would see it , I would stop it .Thanks in advance.

GPY · Accepted Answer

I can give you a couple of hints first.

First, your spacing around punctuation is incorrect. There should be a space after a comma or full stop, but no space before.

Second, your sentence is a run-on, specifically a comma splice. One of the commas should be changed to a full stop. Can you see which one?

There are a couple of other errors too, which I will explain once you've attempted to fix the above.

Presumably the answer to the question "jump in what?" is made clear by the prior context?

Anonymous · Answer

"used to" is good for habits long ago.

So "When I was little ,I used to jump in puddles."

I think after "jump in" you have to have a noun: jump in puddles, jump into a swimming pool. I'm not sure why. After all, you don't need a noun after "go out"; you can say "I never go out when it's raining."

You could add "when it was raining" (not "when it is raining"; you are talking about the long-distant past).

"When I was little, I used to jump in puddles when it was raining."

"the moment" is possible, but sounds unnatural. Try "If my father saw me" or "when my father saw me".

You can't say "when my father would see me" in this sentence, and I'm not sure why. Does anyone have any ideas?

I think I would just say "I would stop" or perhaps "I would stop doing it" rather than "I would stop it." Again I'm not sure why. You can stop a train (if you're superman); you can stop a bus (by waving your hand); you can stop smoking (if you have strong will). But if it's just something you are doing, you just stop.

I'd say: " When I was little ,I used to jump in puddles when it was raining, if my father saw me, I would stop at once."

Past habit

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