Go, play, do with sports
Could you help me by telling me the rules to associate sports with the verbs to go, to play and to do? Thanks!
13 Answers
'Do yoga? Play yoga? Go yoga?'
We use the verbs play, do and go with sports and activities. Here is the information you need to know to use them correctly:
Play is used with ball sports or competitive games where we play against another person:
'How often do you play tennis?' - tennis is a ball sport. 'I play poker with my friends on Friday night.' - poker is a competitive game. We play to win. 'I don't like playing computer games.' - again, computer games are competitive so we use play.
Do is used for a recreational activity or a non-team sport that does not use a ball:
'I heard that you do karate.' - karate is a non-team activity. 'I do crossword puzzles in my free time.' - crossword puzzles are not competitive.
Go is used with activities that end -ing. We go somewhere to do something:
'I'm going fishing on Sunday.' 'Are you going skiing this winter?' 'She said she was going swimming.'
We would say:
I play tennis, badminton, hockey, golf, football (soccor) Rugby etc...
The verb play is usually used when a person plays /persons play any sport or they take part in any competitive sport
Some people make no distinction between the use of the words play and practise I would disagree and consider the subtle distinction important as I have explained the basic difference in this post above and below
However, with some sporting activities especially Martial Arts like Judo, Karate and fencing the verb practise is more commonly used
For example:
1 She practises fencing every friday morning
or
2 He practises Kung Fu at his club four times a week and is training to become an instructor.
Stlll for other unusual activities we might turn the word into a verb:
For example: He surfs, she skates, they ski , bungy jump, etc...
or we can say: they go paragliding, hangliding, bungy jumping etc....
The word practise is usually associated with training in that sport rather than an actual game
For example: 1 The boys went to foootball practice every thursday.
2 She went to the swimming pool to practise her Backstroke, Butterfly and Front Crawl (all names of swimming strokes)
I hope this helps guide you 
It is not intended to be a complete guide 
just a starting point.
go play do
We almost always say "play"
eg. I play soccer, you play basketbell, we play tennis,
However, it is we swim, or we are swimmers, or you are a swimmer.
We/I/You/They/She/He go to soccer, or practice soccer, or have soccer practice.
I dance, you dance, we dance, we have dance classes, we take dance, we are dancers. Also, it is i do yoga, i do karate.
Very confusing, I know.
Hope that helps!
K
When you want to use the word "play", think of sports that accumulate points (football, golf, soccer, basketball, tennis, etc.). Other activities, such as swimming and racing, do not. They are scored using time, so the word "play" is not normally associated with those activities. For those, you could simply say "I swim", or "I go swimming". When you put the word "go" in the statement, it makes it seem more like something you do for fun as opposed to something in which you compete.
I hope this helps!
Just to make things more confusing for you Antoine, I have been asked many times "Do you "do" scuba diving?" which is an acceptable question. Not one that I would use but nonetheless acceptable. I and most others would ask "Do you scuba dive?"
All that time I spent learning about jugar a and toca and I never thought that it was so much more complicated in English ! 
I just want to thank each one and every one of you... all opinions have been very important and I've read all of them carefully. Thanks a lot of your help and your time.
For a basic rule of thumb you might want to go with this:
If it is the name of a sport you are using then you should use the word play.
For example, tennis, football, fútbol, basketball, baseball, etc. All will need to have the word "play" used with them.
If the sport is also an action verb then you use the word "do" instead of "play".
For example, swim, run, ride, etc All of these will use "do" in question form. Do you ____? In statement form, I personally do not use the word "do" at all. I use nothing in present tense or past tense. "I swim." However, that being said, I am not opposed to using "used to" in past tense form. "I used to bowl, but I don't anymore."
I never use the word "go" when dealing with sports that I can think of, except when used directly before the word "play". "Let's go play some ball."
Ooppsss...I just realized you are fluent in Spanish. In English you say:
I play sports - I play tennis, I play basketball, I play volleyball.
Play and practice are more or less similar, you can say I play .....instead of practice ..... Or you can say, I do Karate, I do yoga, I box, I go to horseback riding.
Also, I go swimming or I swim, I go to play sports or I play sports.
What exactly do you want to say?
The activities that end in -ing, like fencing or bowling, can use the root verb alone:
I fence.
I bowl.
I fish.
I swim.
I dance.
I knit.
I write.
These are some more examples from England.. it is very confusing, now I look at it from a different point of view!
I go horse-riding once a week. / I horse-ride once a week/ I go for a horse-ride once a week. (Talking with other horse-riders or people who already know I do it, I would omit 'horse'. Unfortunately, these days to say purely 'ride' can give some people the opportunity to give the word a sexual double-meaning.)
I go swimming every day. / I swim every day / I go for a swim every day.
I think 'play' is used when that particular sport is a team game, but you can use 'go' if talking about a training session or an actual match/game etc.
I play football twice a week. I go to football training twice a week.
I play tennis occasionally. I occasionally go for a game of tennis .
As Feliz says, we do sometimes use 'practice' but I think it's less common as a verb than a noun, and in the cases he mentions we could equally use 'do' in spoken English:
I do judo, I do fencing. (Or, I go to fencing classes etc)
Looks like an absolute minefield doesn't it!
Someone show me a book asking something like this..as long as I remember... "write the rules to relate the verbs to play, to do, to go with sports"
to play a sport you use: jugar + a + deporte (sport)
Ejemplo: jugar al tenis, jugar al baloncesto, jugar al vólibol.
If you are talking about playing an instrument you use tocar, ejemplo: tocar la guitarra.
