"Мама не хочет играть в баскетбол."
Translation:Mom does not want to play basketball.
9 Comments
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.
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.
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)
This question is about a sport though? Why is there a 'в' in мама не хочет играть 'в' баскетбол ?
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)
