GCSE German: Free Time and Hobbies Revision Guide

Key vocabulary

• Fußball spielen — to play football
• schwimmen — to swim
• lesen — to read
• fernsehen — to watch TV
• Musik hören — to listen to music
• ins Kino gehen — to go to the cinema
• einkaufen gehen — to go shopping
• Sport treiben — to do sport
• reiten — to go horse riding

Saying what you like and dislike

Add gern after the verb to say you like doing something, and nicht gern to say you dislike it: Ich spiele gern Fußball. (I like playing football.) Ich lese nicht gern. (I do not like reading.) To say you like something best, use am liebsten: Ich schwimme am liebsten. (I like swimming best.)

Present tense of regular verbs

Regular verbs follow a pattern based on their stem. Take spielen (to play): ich spiele, du spielst, er/sie/es spielt, wir spielen, ihr spielt, sie/Sie spielen. The endings -e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en are added to the stem after removing -en from the infinitive. This pattern works for most regular verbs such as machen, wohnen and hören.

Talking about when you do things

Time phrases like am Wochenende (at the weekend), jeden Tag (every day) and manchmal (sometimes) are useful for adding detail: Am Wochenende spiele ich gern Tennis. (At the weekend I like playing tennis.) Note that the verb stays in second position, so the subject "ich" moves after the verb.

Common mistakes

• Putting "gern" in the wrong place — it goes directly after the verb, not at the end of the sentence.
• Forgetting to change the verb ending for "du" and "er/sie/es".
• Translating "fernsehen" literally instead of learning it as a separable verb meaning "to watch TV".