"Мама не хочет играть в баскетбол."

Translation: Mom does not want to play basketball.

[BilingualBabe_]

Why is there в in this sentence?

[SeosamhOSlatra]

In Russian, a preposition usually follows the verb играть. For sports, use в. Think of it like this: Я играю в хоккей. = I play (in the sport of) hockey.

For musical instruments, use на. Я играю на барабанах. = I play (on) the drums.

[peterviuz]

From that, I deduce that the sports are in the accusative case, so don't change if the word is masculine; and that musical instruments are in the prepositional case, as in Я играю на гитаре, although I know that пианино (piano) remains unchanged, as it is a foreign word.

[mosfet07]

To distinguish the activity from the composer's name or the musical composition in the accusative case:

• играть в футбол
• играть Чайковского
• играть вальс (waltz)

[LyleRobinson]

This question is about a sport though? Why is there a 'в' in мама не хочет играть 'в' баскетбол ?

[diogogomez]

Peninsula123, i see you study Portuguese. See the verb "играть" as follows:

The verb «играть» is used as follows:

в + Accusative for games (corresponds to the verb "jogar" in Portuguese)

• Я игра́ю в футбо́л (eu jogo futebol)

на + Prepositional for musical instruments (corresponds to the verb "tocar" en Portuguese)

• Я игра́ю на гита́ре. (Eu toco violão)

[Die_Lerche]

So you are playing ON an instrument and IN a (sport) game ;-)

[Redko.]

Can the word баскетбол refer to both the sport, and the ball?

[Kundoo]

No, it only refers to the sport. The ball is "баскетбольный мяч".

[Jess746959]

Она сказала ИГРАЕТ, не ИГРАТЬ .

[DazelGuudFoxah]

But moooom ;(

[zhenidrag]

She was playing even on a professional level in Women NBA. And still she doesn't want to play. Mom you suck!