Fun In English: Play? Go? Do?

Student: I play swimming every weekend

Teacher: Oh really? You go swimming every weekend?

A common mistake. In some languages, talking about games, sports, and fitness activities is easy. For example, Japanese uses one verb "do":

"I play chess" = chesu shimasu  (チェスをします)

In English, we usually use go, play, and do. Which games, sports, or fitness activities do we use them with? Let's look at some examples.

GO

PLAY

 

DO

Go is for sports like skiing, swimming, cycling, hiking, sky diving, jogging, etc. These activities don't have any real rules. You can go cycling any way you want, use any kind of bicycle, for example. 

Play is for games, like baseball, chess, soccer, etc, especially games that use balls, and other objects that are hit, kicked, or thrown.

Do is for other fitness activities like yoga, weights (strength training), karate, etc. Again, these don't have rules that have to be followed. 

Now, practice with this short exercise. You can answer in the comments section. Note: remember your grammar (I go, he goes, etc).

a)Bob____hockey on weekends.

b)I like to___skating on the frozen lake in winter.

c)Linda and Bob____judo on Wednesdays.

Bonus activity: Write about your favourite sports, games, or activity go, play, or do. 



Note:  updated to fix typo (10/23/2015)