How do I say “before” or “used to” in Japanese?

Question

朝に作文を買ったの時、質問になります。

How can I say something like:

I didn't used to like this band. *Before, I didn't like this band.*

Answer 1

Your initial Japanese sentence doesn't make sense.

Anyway, for "before" or "used too", you can use 昔【むかし】 (long ago), 昔々 (if you really want to emphasize that it was long ago). Or you can simply say 前（は） or 以前（は) for a more "recent" period of before.

以前はこのバンドが好きじゃなかった（けど）。

You could also use かつて to mean "at one time/formerly", but I'm not too familiar with its syntax. I think like

かつての好きじゃないバンド

Answer 2

I'm not sure exactly what the first line of your question is supposed to say, so maybe you want to rephrase that.

But to say "used to," there isn't quite a literal translation. You could just say （以前・昔）このバンドは好きじゃなかった, with the part in parentheses being optional/emphasizing that this was before. This is a natural way of conveying essentially the same information, and if you really want to drive the point home you can add 好きじゃなかったが、今は好きだ. (I didn't like them, but now I do)

Answer 3

このごろまで、このバンドは好きではありませんでした. or

このごろまで、このバンド（が）好きじゃなかった|

I did not like this band until recently.

You can replace このごろまで with 前は (before) but somehow this feels more natural.

(Given the Japanese predilection for double negatives, there may well be an equivalent way of saying "I did not used to" and still convey the same meaning as "I didn't [like___] before but now..." but you might find the parallel construction is used by people of a different age/time or the equivalent expression used by the age/group you have in mind uses completely different grammar.)