jouer à vs faire de
French has no single verb for a hobby: the choice depends on the activity, and the preposition contracts with the article. Ball sports and games take jouer à — je joue au football, aux cartes. Most other sports take faire de — je fais du vélo, de la natation, de l'équitation. Contractions are obligatory: à+le→au, à+les→aux, de+le→du, de+les→des. The verb–activity pairing must be learned; the full table is in the note.
Cover three time frames
Free-time tasks reward moving between time frames, not staying present. Present (habit): je joue au tennis tous les week-ends. Imperfect (past habit): quand j'étais petit(e), je faisais de la natation. Perfect (one event): le week-end dernier, j'ai joué au foot. Conditional/near future (ambition): je voudrais essayer l'escalade; je vais regarder un match. Answering only in the present is the commonest way marks are lost here.
Drawn from real examiner reports.
Present tense in the wrong time frame
Free-time tasks often signal a time frame with a cue word (récemment, l'année dernière, quand tu étais jeune), and candidates default to the present. 'What you used to play' needs the imperfect (je faisais, not je fais); 'what you would like to try' needs the conditional (je voudrais essayer). A tense mismatch caps Task Completion.
Digest, Verb tense/person errors — the single most cited Writing failure every sitting: answering in a tense other than the one the task signals (s22/w22/s23/w23 Writing).
récemment cues the perfect, not present
The adverb récemment (recently) signals a completed past action needing the perfect (j'ai joué), yet candidates keep answering in the present (je regarde). Treat time adverbs as tense triggers: récemment, l'année dernière → perfect; quand j'étais petit(e) → imperfect; à l'avenir → future/conditional. This avoids the mismatch that caps Task Completion.
Digest, Technology/communication: *récemment* frequently missed as a past-tense cue, candidates answering in the present, flagged twice in one sitting (s22 Speaking Topic 4 & 5).
Adjective must agree with the activity
A hobby almost always needs an opinion adjective (amusant, intéressant, ennuyeux); it must agree with the ACTIVITY noun, not stay masculine: la natation est amusante (NOT amusant); mes activités préférées sont intéressantes. Do not over-correct — le foot est plus fatigant stays masculine because foot is. Named in the Accuracy boilerplate every sitting.
Digest, Adjective agreement + placement: gender/number agreement named in the Writing Accuracy boilerplate, scoring-critical, every sitting (s22/w22/s23/w23 Writing).
assister à = to attend, not assist
assister à is a false friend: it means to attend / be present at (a match, a concert), NOT "to assist/help". J'ai assisté au match = "I attended the match", not "I helped at the match". Candidates who read it as "assist" answer about helping and lose the mark. Note the preposition: assister takes à — au match, aux concerts.
Digest, False friends: *assister* (to attend) misread as "to help/assist" (s23 Speaking Topic 7).
Contract the preposition every time
The contraction with jouer à and faire de is obligatory. à + le → au, à + les → aux: je joue au football, aux cartes — never à le football. de + le → du, de + les → des: je fais du vélo, des randonnées — never de le vélo. Only la and l' stay uncontracted: à la pétanque, de la natation, de l'équitation.
faire de cannot replace jouer à
Because faire feels all-purpose, candidates assume it fits every sport, writing je fais au football — wrong. Ball sports and games take jouer à (je joue au football, aux cartes); faire de suits many sports (du vélo, de la natation), but the two are NOT interchangeable — jouer au tennis is not faire du tennis. Each verb fixes its own preposition (à vs de).
Digest, Prepositions and other precision traps: insecure preposition/contraction use named in Writing Accuracy notes across sittings (s22/w22/s23/w23).
A reusable hobbies-answer routine
Build a free-time answer in this order: the activity with its verb (je joue au... / je fais du/de la...), how often, an agreeing adjective (c'est amusant), then a second time frame (past habit or ambition). This forces more than one tense and the right verb choice.
Re-read for the tense actually asked
Before finishing, check every verb against the tense the task signalled: récemment / l'année dernière → perfect; "what you used to do" → imperfect. A tense mismatch caps Task Completion whatever the vocabulary quality, so this re-read protects easy marks.
Show range beyond parce que
Most candidates cap in a mid band by relying on parce que and simple sentences. To lift the Range mark, add variety: an object pronoun (je le trouve amusant), an infinitive after a modal (je voudrais essayer), or a comparison (plus fatigant que le tennis).
Talking about hobbies, sport and entertainment is tested across every skill — Listening adverts/interviews, Reading matching texts, Speaking topic conversations, and Writing Q2/Q3. The two things that decide most of the marks are the jouer à / faire de choice and using more than one time frame.
Sports and games (jouer à + contraction):
| French | Contraction | English |
|---|---|---|
| le football | au football | football |
| le basket | au basket | basketball |
| le tennis | au tennis | tennis |
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