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Ol Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
Used to
She used to teach him.
She used to be teaching him.
What's the difference?
He used to be taught by her.
He used to have been taught by her.
What's the difference?
She used to be teaching him.
What's the difference?
He used to be taught by her.
He used to have been taught by her.
What's the difference?
Top answer
The first is fine. The second is unnatural as a stand-alone sentence. The third is OK.
- The first is fine.
- The second is unnatural as a stand-alone sentence.
- The third is OK.
- The fourth is not possible.
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4 Answers
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The first is fine.
The second is unnatural as a stand-alone sentence.
The third is OK.
The fourth is not possible.
The second is unnatural as a stand-alone sentence.
The third is OK.
The fourth is not possible.
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Ol how can I make the second sentence natural?You can't. "used to be teaching" cannot be found in COCA at all (a corpus of American English), and other instances of "used to be -ing" with other verbs are few and far between. It's best to avoid all those variants and stick with the plain "used to" plus a plain verb.
CJ
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