used to or the simple past

[aysaa]

Hi.

-When I was a child, I always used to have dinner with my parents 2 hours earlier than the current time.

Is that grammatically correct? The sentence may seem weird, but I could't figure out the better one. Must I use 'the simple past tense' instead of 'used to'?

Thanks.

[emsr2d2]

Hi.

-When I was a child, I always used to have dinner with my parents 2 hours earlier than the current time.

Is that grammatically correct? The sentence may seem weird, but I could't figure out the better one. Must I use 'the simple past tense' instead of 'used to'?

Thanks.

The combination of "always" and "used to" makes this sentence clunky for me.

When I was a child, I always had dinner with my parents two hours earlier than ...
When I was a child, I used to have dinner with my parents two hours earlier than ...
When I was a child, I had dinner with my parents two hours earlier than ...

I'm not sure what you mean at the end of the sentence. You used to have dinner at 6pm and now you eat at 8pm? You used to eat two hours earlier than whatever time the reader reads your sentence? (That makes no sense, by the way). Do you still eat with your parents every night and dinnertime has changed? Do you live separately and now you eat two hours later than you did when you lived with your parents?

[aysaa]

I tried to say that 'I used to have dinner at 6pm and now I eat at 8pm'.

Thanks for the answer.

[5jj]

I tried to say that 'I used to have dinner at 6pm and now I eat at 8pm'.

That is the simplest and clearest way to say it.