...just dropping in from misc.education.language.education and making a
point from the viewpoint of the original poster.
Many non-native speakers of English have problems picking this up (as
part of a larger semi-modal issue) because "used to" is not like "must,
can, or should," or even like "ought to" (some slight usage
controversies here).
Normal modal auxiliary verbs are not conjugated and are always followed
by a bare infinitive, which make learning them more a matter of meaning
than of form. "Has/have to" is easily understandable and follows
first/third person logic, which is likewise likely to be well
understood in the minds of leaners by the time they tackle "used to."
The problem is that the pronunciation of "use to" and "used to" is
exactly the same in this usage were talking about, e.g.:
He used to go to camp every summer when he was young.
He didn't use to go to camp every summer when he was young.
While many native speakers, both British and American, who are not too
particular about their English, might write in a moment of sloppiness:
He didn't useD to got camp every summer when he was young.
...it rarely ends up in professionally edited print.
However, the problem becomes magnified in second-language learning
classroom situations, especially with learners who faithfully copy down
every word the teacher scrawls on the board. For those of you who are
teachers, you know that you tend to make small mistakes in boardwork
when you're under time pressure to finish your planned lesson of the
day.
Out of the fifteen or so example sentences a teacher might use in a
traditional "chalk-and-talk" analytically-oriented grammar explanation
(as you would usually use with this specific grammar point), switching
between statement, question, negative, and negative-question form, the
teacher might accidentally write "used to" as indicated in my third
example sentence. Even if she or he rubs it out later, the damage is
done. I've seen it happen with "used to" too often for it to be a
coincidence.
Even if the teacher doesn't drop the ball, the mistake in the learners'
English just keeps on popping up because of the tense confusion issue,
and there's little or nothing the teacher can do about it without
systematically devoting valuable time to it in another lesson.
So, over in a.u.e., you seem to have had to deal with it coming from
foreign-language-learners a number of times.
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