Sports Vocabulary in French

Quick Answer

In this article, you'll learn how to talk about sports in French!

Questions This Article Answers

How do you say soccer in French?

How do you say I play basketball in French?

How do you talk about sports in French?

Sports

Let's start with the names of a few popular sports in France!

A Few Names of Sports in French

French	English
le base-ball	baseball
le basket-ball	basketball
la boxe	boxing
le cyclisme	cycling
le football	soccer
le football américain	American football
le golf	golf
le handball	handball
la lutte	wrestling
la natation	swimming
le rugby	rugby
le surf	surfing
le tennis	tennis
le volley-ball	volleyball

It is very common to drop the -ball part in French. Most people will say le basket(basketball), le foot(soccer), le hand(handball), and le volley(volleyball). One exception is le base-ball (baseball). You cannot omit the -ball part in base-ball in French.

Talking about Sports in French

Now that you know the words for some of the most popular sports, let's see how you would use them in a sentence. The most common way to say that you practice a sport in French would be to use the verb faire(to do) + the preposition de(of) + the name of the sport.

When the preposition de(of) comes before the definite article le, they combine to form du(of the).

examples
Je fais du basket tous les lundis. I play basketball every Monday.
Mon frère fait de la natation au lycée. My brother swims at his high school.
Je faisais du tennis quand j'étais petite. I used to play tennis when I was a child.

Another way to talk about sports in French is to use the verb jouer(to play) + preposition à+ the name of the sport. However, just like in English, this structure does not apply to all the sports in the table above. For example, you can play tennis, but you cannot play surfing.