Talking about your favorite sports and hobbies is a great way to break the ice and improve your conversation skills. Knowing how to talk about your favorite activities in Spanish will help you introduce yourself better and connect with people and their interests as well.

In today’s post, we’ll cover tons of Spanish vocabulary regarding activities and hobbies such as sports, games, and pastimes. We will also take a look at some handy verbs and expressions we use when talking about our favorite activities in Spanish.

We’ll start the post off with a section on useful verbs, phrases, and questions to talk about our favorite activities in Spanish. Then we’ll have the activity sections, each with a big Spanish vocabulary list: we start with sports in Spanish, we’ll work through outdoor activities, artistic pursuits, relaxing pastimes and games in Spanish, leading all the way to domestic activities in Spanish.

Let the games begin!

Activities in Spanish: Key Words and Phrases

Before getting into the vocabulary lists, let’s start with some useful words and phrases for asking questions and talking about our hobbies in Spanish.

Expressing interests, likes, and dislikes

We have a variety of Spanish verbs and phrases for talking about the things we like or dislike. Let’s start off with the main verbs you may find useful for describing how you feel about certain activities in Spanish:

Note that gustar and encantar are conjugated to match the activity which is liked, with indirect object pronouns for whoever likes that activity. Amar and odiar are regular -ar verbs. Check out these examples to see how we can talk about how we like or dislike various activities or sports in Spanish:

• I like soccer. – Me gusta el fútbol.

• I like to play soccer. – Me gusta jugar fútbol.

• She likes to paint. – A ella le gusta pintar.

• I love music and photography. – Amo la música y la fotografía.

• She loves to play as a team. – Ella ama jugar en equipo.

• He loves to go camping with friends. – A él le encanta acampar con amigos.

• We love to bake chocolate cookies. – Nos encanta hornear galletas de chocolate.

• I hate to swim when the water is cold. – Odio nadar cuando el agua está fría.

• My mother hates running in the mornings. – Mi mamá odia correr por las mañanas.

The verbs we’ve just introduced are the most common ways to express liking or disliking for certain activities, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones. Check out this other list for some additional phrases to talk about your hobbies in Spanish:

Let’s look at some examples:

• Learning Spanish is my passion. – Aprender español es mi pasión.

• Surfing is what Samuel likes the most. – El surf es lo que más le gusta a Samuel.

• We are interested in sports. – Sports interest us. – Nos interesan los deportes.

• I’m a rugby fan. – Soy fanático del rugby.

• They are interested in the arts. – Están interesados en las artes.

Asking about interests and hobbies in Spanish

Now that you know how to talk about your favorite activities in Spanish, it’s time to learn how to ask about other people’s interests. Check out this list to learn how to ask your friends about their favorite hobbies and sports in Spanish.

Sports – Los deportes

Let’s start our Spanish vocabulary lists with this section on Spanish sports. Whether you’re a fan of certain teams or you like to practice these activities yourself, these are the words you need to refer to a wide variety of sports in Spanish.

Outdoor Activities – Las Actividades al Aire Libre

This section is for fresh air and nature lovers. Here’s how to talk about outdoor activities in Spanish. Notice that in the Spanish column we include both the noun and the verb for the specific activity, whereas in English the -ing word encompasses both.

Arts – Las Artes

This one goes out to everyone with an artistic streak. Here we include a variety of creative arts in Spanish, noting both the noun and the verb for most of them.

Dances and rhythms – Los bailes y ritmos

In Spanish, dance and rhythm is an integral part of the language and the culture. Here’s a list of some of the most popular Latin American dance styles, as well as some of the other international styles of dance in Spanish.

Instruments – Los instrumentos

If music is your thing, you’ll want to be able to refer to what you play. Here’s a list of some popular instruments in Spanish:

Games and Entertainment – Los Juegos y el Entretenimiento

In this section we find more common pastimes in Spanish that we usually do to relax or enjoy with friends.

Domestic Hobbies – Hobbies Domésticos

There are some hobbies that we enjoy around the house. If this is your thing, here’s our list of relaxing domestic activities in Spanish.

Activities in Spanish: Conclusion

It looks like we covered all the necessary vocabulary and expressions to talk about different activities in Spanish. Nice job! What do you say we do a little review before saying goodbye?

First, we learned how to express liking or disliking hobbies or activities in Spanish using some key verbs: gustar, encantar, amar, and odiar. In addition, we introduced some slightly more elaborate phrases for expressing your opinions on your favorite activities in Spanish. Then we covered the vocabulary of the different types of activities, starting with sports and outdoor activities, then art-related activities, relaxation and entertainment activities, and finally domestic hobbies. We even included a bunch of vocab for specific instruments and dance styles in Spanish.

We hope you enjoyed this post and learned some new words to describe your favorite activities in Spanish. Remember that you can bookmark it to review the vocabulary whenever you need to. See you in the next post!