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Lesson Transcript

Welcome to EnglishClass101.com’s British English in Three Minutes. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn English.
Hey everyone, I’m Gina!
In this series, we’re going to learn some easy ways to ask and answer common questions in English. It’s really useful, and it only takes three minutes!
In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to ask someone about what sports they like.
If you’re a sports fan, then you’ll know how much fun it is when you meet someone who likes that sport as much as you do, even if they don’t like your favorite team.
You may assume that you just say “Which sports do you like?” Of course this is a normal way to ask this question, but there’s actually a more natural way to ask this.
In idiomatic English we use the phrase “to be into a sport” to mean “to like or be interested in a sport”. So you can ask:
“Which sports are you into?”
Or, if you think it’s likely that the other person does like sports, you can ask:
“Which sports do you follow?”
You can answer either of these questions by saying:
“Yeah, I'm into [and then the name of the sport].”
“Yeah, I follow football.”
Or you can say:
“Yeah, I like football.”
Or you can use the phrase “I’m a fan of~”.
“Yeah, I’m a fan of football.”
But what if you don’t like sports?
Again, remember what we said before about being careful not to hurt the other person’s feelings by saying anything too offensive. Just say:
“No, I don’t really follow any sports.”
Lots of people don’t like to watch sports, but do like to play sports. If this is you, then you can say:
“I'm not really into sports, but I like playing [and then the name of the sport]”.
“I'm not really into sports, but I like playing football.”
A good place to expand the conversation is if you answer “Yeah, I follow football” and the other person answers “me too” or something similar, to then ask about what teams they support. All you need to say is:
“Which team do you support?”
Or, as we said in previous lessons, you can expand the conversation by asking the other person: “How about you?” once you’ve finished answering.
Now it’s time for Gina’s Tips!
Sports are a very popular topic of conversation in the UK. It’s a totally neutral, easy way to talk about topic which avoids controversial themes such as politics and religion. Topics such as these are not usually considered appropriate things to talk about with someone you have just met.
What sports are you into? Let us know in the comments!
In the next English in Three Minutes lesson we’ll be learning a really useful question for making conversation with native speakers and non-native speakers of English alike!

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