often

Often is mostly used for habitual behaviour, to mean ‘a lot of times on different occasions’. To say ‘a lot of times on one occasion’, we normally use another expression (e.g. a lot of times, several times, keep …ing). Compare:

• I often fell in love when I was younger.
• I fell several times yesterday when I was skiing. or I kept falling yesterday … (not I often fell yesterday …)

Note that often has two common pronunciations, with and without t: /ˈɒfən/

and /ˈɒftən/

.

note

For the position of often and other adverbials of indefinite frequency, (see here).