Past Habits with Would + Infinitive

The main function of would + infinitive is to talk about our repeated actions in the past, in other words, our past habits.

Remember that would + infinitive without to is only for past actions that don’t happen now.

We find would in these 3 forms:

Affirmative

Its structure, in the affirmative form, is:
Subject + would + infinitive ( without to ) + …

Negative

Its structure, in the negative form, is
Subject + wouldn’t/would not + infinitive + ( without to ) + …

Interrogative

Its structure, in the interrogative form, is:
Would + subject + infinitive + ( without to ) + …?

• My interns would work hard.
• My interns wouldn’t work hard.
• Would my interns work hard?

We use would + infinitive when we talk about things that happened in the past but don’t happen anymore.