But to identify a particular 'would' as equivalent to a 'used to' and then translate with that meaning is already to make a translation decision.

The trouble is that 'would' is redolent with meaning and the various nuances of 'would' may inextricably entangled in a particular sentence.

In giving my examples of usage I was aiming to give examples that were relative uncontroversial as to the intended meaning (quite difficult).

Even in 'When I was a child, we would ..' it could be argued that there is some of the meaning of Froggie would .. or The car wouldn't start.

In Eldanar's original sentence I'm not sure the 'Once there, he would be ..' is absolutely equivalent to 'Once there, he used to be..' (doesn't sound quite right).

What person (1st 2nd or 3rd) doesn't seem relevant to the issue, I can just as easily say 'how he would laugh', as 'how we would laugh' or 'every effing Bank holiday it would start to rain, you could rely on it.'

tommjames:EldanarLambetur you may want to check whether your references prefer "would" out of the means of marking the habitual past, or out of all means by which it may be expressed in English.

The Wikipedia page for habitual aspect notes that:

wiki:Habitual aspect is frequently expressed in unmarked form in English, as in "I walked to work every day for ten years"

Most of them were talking specifically about marking the habitual, some of them specifically in a context with similar properties as this one (non-stative, third person, etc.).

Since my last post, I've only found more style guides which say that "would" is good here, some even recommend it over other solutions in this style of example. Which makes it sound far from clumsy.

It's been suggested that "would" is unneeded or redundant when the time frame is already established. However this discussion suggests that "would" sounds clumsy without having pre-specified the time frame

I'm aware that there are other ways of marking the habitual and I make use of them as well. But I'm surprised to hear that "would" in this context is anything less than stylistic variance, especially clumsy. Would definitely be interested in seeing an explanation. Just because re-wording without "would" is possible, doesn't mean "would" is clumsy.

I often favour the use of the simple past instead of "would" in short sentences "Every day, we went to the shops". But in the example in my first post, the gap between the statement of the time frame and the habitual action, is so large, that switching to the simple past instead of using "would" feels clunky; when reading the sentence at a normal pace with the surrounding text, the lack of the habitual "would" marker leaves a feeling of having switched aspects inappropriately. Perhaps it's just what I'm used to reading, but the addition of the helper "would" only seems to help the flow.

sudanglo:But to identify a particular 'would' as equivalent to a 'used to' and then translate with that meaning is already to make a translation decision.

Interestingly, I was recently reading an academic linguistics paper about the proposal that "used to" isn't a real habitual aspect marker (so is explicitly not equivalent to "would" ). That it is more like a "non-present/future" marker, separating past actions from current/future ones, and that the other words in the sentence in conjunction with "used to" are what imply habitual actions.

That's about all I remember of the paper, since my mind tends to unravel halfway through a linguistics paper.

It's been suggested that "would" is unneeded or redundant when the time frame is already established. However this discussion (link) suggests that "would" sounds clumsy without having pre-specified the time frame

Maybe it's more that without a pre-estabished time frame the use of 'would' could mean something other than habitual past.

This seems to me a natural consequence of the multiplicity of uses of 'would'

But the point under discussion is whether the 'would ' adds meaning in cases where the time frame is established (either through context or explicitly).

my mind tends to unravel halfway through a linguistics paper.

Which proves what a sensible chap you are Eldanar.

These professional obscurantists are to my mind worse than mediaeval theologians - a modern realisation of the Emperor has no clothes, with the difference that they try hide the nudity of their thoughts behind the fig leaves of their arcane jargon.

Rather than invent a spurious rule about the prohibition of 'would' with 'stative' verbs they could say with more common sense and greater clarity that 'would' has many uses and therefore the two words 'would have', sen konteksto aŭ kunteksto, cannot be interpreted with definite meaning.

I would have (thought so)
I would have (a face book account if you paid me)
She would have (her period when I was in the mood)
He would have (problems later in life from his excessive drinking)
He would have (the most bizarre thoughts from time to time)

and so on.