Is there any difference between "We used to have a house" and "we had a house"?
I know there is difference between simple past and "used to", but sometimes it seems they have the same meaning. See this:

"We used to have a nice apartment downtown. It had great views of the city! But then these new people moved in upstairs. They played loud music all the time and the sound came straight through the ceiling and into our apartment."

Why not "They used to play ..."?

Question

Is there any difference between "We used to have a house" and "we had a house"?
I know there is difference between simple past and "used to", but sometimes it seems they have the same meaning. See this:

"We used to have a nice apartment downtown. It had great views of the city! But then these new people moved in upstairs. They played loud music all the time and the sound came straight through the ceiling and into our apartment."

Why not "They used to play ..."?

Answer

Sometimes we go to the expression of an emotion with certain expressions.For example, you read a passage, which use some specific usage expressed the affection.In my opinoin,"used to"here  contains a kind of miss the love emotion, and behind compared. This is why we only context can experience the feelings. But if only simple words "We used to have a house" and "we had a house",there is no difference.

Answer

Personally I prefer "we had" and "they played" since it keeps the sentence shorter, In your example I might employ "used to" in one sentence and "had" in the other for diversity... These considerations I believe help keep the reader interested.

Answers · 2

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