English Grammar and Exercises for ESL learners.

PLAY - GO - DO

SPORTS and LEISURE ACTIVITIES
When speaking about sports and leisure activities,
the verbs play, go and do are used as shown in the table below.

Verb	Explanation	Sport/Activity
PLAY	Sports with teams, rules and competitions or tournaments. Two people can play a game of tennis. You need a team to play football. Dad's gone to play golf.	Badminton Basketball Football Golf Rugby Tennis , etc

GO	The name of the activity is the gerund form of the verb (-ing). To camp → go camping We often go camping in the summer. To swim → go swimming Many children like to go swimming.	Camping Dancing Hiking Horse-riding Sailing Swimming etc.

DO	All other recreational activities. All classes do gymnastics at school. Sophie does yoga with a group of friends. No wonder he's fit. He does gymnastics every day.	Aerobics Athletics Gymnastics Judo Karate Yoga etc.
EXCEPTIONS: Unlike other activities ending in -ing, we use 'do' with boxing, body-building and weight-lifting.