English Vocabulary - How to use PLAY, GO, DO for sports

Hi there, my name is Ronnie, I'm going to teach you English.

The other weekend I went skiing.

How many of you have ever gone skiing or snowboarding?

Does anyone out there like to ski or snowboard?

I do.

I tried to go snowboarding once, not too successful, but skiing I can do really well.

So today I'm going to teach you about sports.

Now I can't teach you how to play the sports, but I will teach you how to talk about the

sports.

And we usually use three words when we talk about the sports.

And it's difficult to know which sports we play, which sports we do, and which sports

we use the verb "go".

So I'll teach you.

First of all, the most common verb we use with sports is "play".

For example, "I can play tennis".

Another example of this is "baseball".

I can play baseball.

I'm not very good at a lot of sports, so I'm going to be honest and I'm going to say that

I can't play football.

Alright, so the rule is, if we use a ball when we play the sport, we're going to do

"play".

We're going to use the verb "play".

So for example, "tennis", we use "tennis ball", and "baseball" has it in the name, "football",

again it's in the name.

So any sport that has the word "ball" in it, automatically we're going to say "play".

Some sports you might have to think about, "Do I use a ball or not?"

If you do, you're going to say "play".

Now, like in every rule in English, there are exceptions to this, and I'm here to teach

you what they are.

The next one is the verb "go".

I told you that I "went skiing" on the weekend.

Now "go" is the past, sorry, "went" is the past of "go".

So for example, "I go skiing."

Another really popular winter sport is "snowboarding".

I can say "I go skiing" or "I go snowboarding".

Sports that we can play in the springtime or in the summertime, maybe you guys like

to play "golf".

We have to say "I go golfing".

Does anyone know the rule when to use the verb "go"?

Now remember I told you that "play" we use if a sport has a ball, and I also told you

there's an exception.

This one, "golf".

We do use a golf ball, hopefully, when we play golf, but we don't say "play golfing".

The reason is because of the "ing".

So any of the sports that we put an "ing" after, we're going to use "go".

So "I go skiing", "I go snowboarding", "I go golfing".

What about "swimming"?

S-W-I-M-M-I-N-G.

So, when we swim, we don't use a ball, and there is an "ing".

So we're going to say "go swimming".

Now the other one that we use is for individual sports, or you can think of like exercises

or martial arts, like Kung Fu, Judo, Karate.

With that one, we don't use a ball, and we don't have an "ing".

So what do we use?

I'll tell you.

We use "do".

The next verb is "do".

So I can say "I do yoga".

Do you do yoga?

If you could think of more activities or individual sports that you do at a gym.

For example, aerobics.

Aerobics is an individual sport.

We do it in a gym.

It does not have an "ing", and we do not use a ball.

So we're going to use the verb "do".

Maybe not a sport, but more something that we would do at a gym before we were going

to do aerobics would be stretches.

We don't play stretches, there's no ball, and we don't go stretching.

We do stretches.

Okay so we can do yoga, do aerobics, do stretches, and as I said before, we can do martial arts.

Now, as I said before, martial arts include Kung Fu, Judo, Karate, and many, many more.

Alright, so now, when you want to tell your friends about what you did on the weekend

and some sports you might have played, or did, or went skiing, you can be confident

that you are going to use the right verb.

So you're going to play if you use a ball, you're going to go if there's an "ing",

and you're going to do it if it's an individual sport or something you would do as an exercise

in a gym.

Alright, be safe, don't hurt yourself while skiing or snowboarding, and I'll talk to

you later.

Thanks for watching.