Gli sport

To ask which sport a person practices, in Italian, the verb fare is generally used (Quale sport fai? ‘What sport do you do/play?’) or less often praticare (Quale sport pratichi? ‘What sport do you do/play?’). Contrary to English, the verb giocare (to play) is never used in this case.

When one answers the above question or simply talk about sports the use of fare is still possible (faccio atletica, calcio, etc.) but praticare (to practice [practicing]) is preferable with all sports (io pratico sport, tennis, atletica, etc.), while giocare a with those sports that always need more than one person (except for boxing ). For this reason, we can say giocare a tennis, giocare a calcio, etc., but never giocare a nuoto, giocare a sci, etc. For those sports that have a corresponding verb (nuoto [nuotare], sci [sciare], etc.) it is also possible to answer using the verb corresponding to the sports activity (io nuoto, io scio, io corro, etc.) As you will notice, all sports when following the verbs praticare and giocare are preferably indicated without the articles (pratico atletica, gioco a calcio). Several sports keep the English name: football (americano), baseball, tennis, hockey, golf, rugby, jogging. In the case of pallacanestro the English equivalent basketball or basket is often used. Remember the word sport is masculine invariable in Italian (see Unità 2.3, Unità 3.3) as well as all the other English nouns (tennis, basketball, etc)

To practice vocabulary and pronunciation, use Quizlet.

Note: a) the word sconfitta means both feminine looser and defeat, loss; b) goal in Italian is often written gol; c) segnare always means to score a goal even when used alone.

• Look at the images above. Pretend you are the subject of the sports presented. Create sentences both orally and in writing, using all the possible constructions. Then check if there are mistakes in your spoken Italian using Speech to Text and in your text using Spell and Grammar Checker.
• Work with other students asking the following questions. You can then use Speech to Text to check if the computer recognizes the pronunciation
  • Ti piace fare sport?
  • Pratichi qualche sport?
  • Quale sport fai? 
  • Quando hai cominciato a fare sport?