Virtuous English AcademyHobbies & Free Time — A1 English Vocabulary
This A1 vocabulary list gathers 20 beginner English words about hobbies & free time — sport, music, games and having fun. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using hobbies & free time words in English
Free-time vocabulary is what makes small talk possible, and this list is short enough to learn in a couple of sessions. The complication is not the nouns but the verbs that go with them. English uses play, go and do for different kinds of activity, and picking the wrong one is instantly noticeable — I play swimming is understandable and unmistakably not English.
What to watch out for
play games, go + -ing, do activities
Play goes with ball games and competitive games: play football, play cards, play chess. Go goes with activities ending in -ing: go swimming, go dancing, go shopping. Do covers most of the rest: do yoga, do exercise. Learn the whole phrase, not the noun alone.
Instruments take the; sports do not
Play the guitar, play the piano — the article is required. But play football, play tennis, play cards — no article at all. It is an arbitrary split with no logic behind it, and it is one of the quickest ways to sound more natural once you have it.
After like, love and enjoy, the verb takes -ing
I like swimming, I love dancing, I enjoy reading. Not I like swim. After like and love the infinitive also works — I like to swim — with almost no change in meaning, but after enjoy only the -ing form is possible.
Words learners mix up
Two tables. The first is three words about screens and sound, one of which almost every learner puts a plural on. The second shows how English turns a verb into the name of a hobby.
Music, film, photo
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| music | Uncountable, always. There is no a music and no musics — one piece of it is a song or a piece of music. | I listen to music every day. |
| film | Countable and ordinary: one film, two films. Americans say movie for the same thing. | We watched a good film. |
| photo | Countable, and short for photograph. You take a photo — never make or do one. | She took a photo of the sea. |
I like musics is one of the first sentences a teacher hears and one of the last to disappear, because French, Turkish, Spanish and many other languages count the word happily. English does not, so the verb after it stays singular too: the music is too loud.
The verb, and the hobby made from it
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| cooking | Add -ing to the verb and it becomes the name of the activity. As a hobby name it takes no article. | Cooking is my favourite hobby. |
| reading | The same shape, from read. It works as the subject of a sentence, exactly like a noun. | Reading helps you learn new words. |
| ride | The verb itself. Its hobby form is riding, and in Britain that means on a horse unless you say otherwise. | I ride my bike to school. |
This -ing form is a noun and behaves like one: it can be the subject (Cooking takes time), the object (I love cooking), or come after a preposition (good at cooking). It is the single most useful thing to know about talking about hobbies, because it turns every verb you already have into something you can say you enjoy.
Collocations that sound natural
Four words and the phrases people actually build with them. Notice that three of the four take a verb you would not guess from a dictionary.
football
play footballa football matcha football teamwatch footballa football pitch
A single game is a match in Britain and a game in America. The grass it is played on is a pitch, not a field, once the game starts.
party
have a partygo to a partya birthday partyat the party
You have a party or throw one. Make a party is a translation. Note the pair: you go to a party and you are at it.
holiday
go on holidaya summer holidaythe school holidaysa holiday in Spain
The British phrase is on holiday, never in holiday. The plural the holidays means the weeks when school is closed.
game
play a gamea game of cardsa computer gamewin a gamelose a game
A game of plus the name is the way to talk about one occasion: a game of football, a game of cards. You win or lose a game — you never gain or take one.
Where each word belongs
Five words worth placing. One is the word exam questions use and real people avoid, one is British where America has its own, and two only ever appear in a fixed phrase.
- hobbyTextbook · questionnairesCorrect English, but it appears mostly in forms and exam questions. In real conversation people ask What do you do at the weekend? and nobody says the word at all.
- holidayBritishBritain uses it for time off work or school; America says vacation and keeps holiday for national days like Christmas.
- cardsPlural onlyThe game is always plural: play cards. A card on its own is one piece of the pack, or the thing you send someone for a birthday.
- swimWith <em>go</em> or <em>for a</em>The verb is fine, but the activity is go swimming or go for a swim. Saying only I swim sounds like a fact about your skills rather than a plan.
- danceVerb firstEveryday as a verb. As a noun, a dance means an evening event and sounds old-fashioned now — people say a party or name the club instead.
Sentences to try
Four frames for talking about what you do for fun.
- I like reading and I love music.
- We play football every Saturday.
- She plays the guitar and she sings.
- They go swimming on holiday.
Questions about hobbies & free time vocabulary
When do I use play, go and do for activities?
Play for games with rules and usually a ball or an opponent: play football, play tennis, play cards. Go for activities whose names end in -ing: go swimming, go running, go shopping, go dancing. Do for most other individual activities: do yoga, do karate, do exercise. The safest approach is to store the verb and the activity together as one item.
Do I say "I like swim" or "I like swimming"?
I like swimming. After like, love, hate and enjoy, English uses the -ing form of the verb. With like and love the infinitive is also possible — I like to swim — and means much the same thing, though the -ing form leans towards general enjoyment while the infinitive leans towards habit or preference. After enjoy, only -ing is possible.
Is it "play guitar" or "play the guitar"?
The careful form is play the guitar, with the article, and the same goes for every musical instrument: the piano, the violin, the drums. Sports and games take no article at all — play football, play chess. You will hear musicians themselves drop the article (he plays guitar in a band), so both are current, but the version with the is the one to use in writing and in exams.