It’s ski season, but how do you talk about skiing? It is sometimes difficult to find the right words to talk about sports and activities. Here are some simple tips that you can follow.
- We say “ I do exercise” rather than “I do sports” (I exercise every week, I play tennis).
- Some sports are verbs, to change the tense (past present or future) you conjugate the verb, just be careful of irregular verbs!.
Examples: Swim/ ski/ jog/ run/ hike
Yesterday I swam 5km Yesterday I ran 5km/ Tomorrow I will hike in the mountains.
- If this sport is also a verb, you can also use “go +verb ING – you conjugate the verb “go” to change the tense
Examples: Running – Yesterday I went running/ Tomorrow I will go skiing/ I like to go skiing every year.
- You can also use the noun form of some sports.
Examples: I went for a run yesterday/ I will go for a swim tomorrow.
- You use the verb “do” with individual sports such as judo, karate and gymnastics.
- You use the verb “play” with team sports such as rugby, football and cricket. However, you also play golf and tennis!
- We only use the verb “practise” when we talk about a specific action that we do in this sport.
Examples: In tennis, you might practise your serve or your backhand. In swimming you might practise your front crawl or backstroke? Therefore we don’t say “I practise tennis every week.”
- When you talk about skiing, you can ski on a “slope” “run” or “piste” but for those of you who like dangerous sports you might ski ‘off-piste”. In order to get the piste you must take a “ski-lift” and when you “hit the slopes” you can choose different types of skiing ; cross country, downhill or freestyle.