Piscine OR natation

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 28, 2009 at 10:52pm

Hello Crack,

Your first sentence is absolutely correct.

"Le lundi, je vais à la piscine" - "On mondays, I go to the swimming pool"
Both parts of the sentence can obviously be swapped if you want to.

"Natation" isn't the place, but the name of the sport (swimming).

"Faire de la natation" is equivalent to "Nager" (to swim).

"Je fais de la natation à la piscine"
"Je nage dans la mer"

In English it is correct to say you can go swimming, running, hiking, etc.

It's also the case in French, you can say "je vais" followed by an infinitive verb.

"Je vais nager"
"Je vais jouer au basket" (we could also say "je vais faire un basket")
"Je vais jouer au foot" ("je vais faire un foot")
"Je vais courir" ("je fais faire un jogging" or "je vais faire un footing")
"Je vais tirer à l'arc"
"Je vais jouer au tennis" ("je vais faire un tennis")
"Je vais skier" ("je vais faire du ski")

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 29, 2009 at 12:08am

Thanks Frank

You can go to the swimming pool and you can go swimming is two different things in English.

However, it seems French sees I can go swimming as well as I will go to the pool as ' Je vais à la piscine'.

What can I do to get some exercises?
You can go swimming.

To a greater extent, you can go to the pool is irrelevant in the above.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 29, 2009 at 3:45am

I think if you say in English I'm going to the swimming baths, the implication is usually that you're going swimming. I'm not sure there's a huge difference between French and English.

As Frank mentioned, you can use the phrase (aller) faire de la natation if you specifically want to talk about the actual act of swimming rather than the place.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 29, 2009 at 9:58am

"je fais faire un jogging"
Ouch, just spotted this... this is a typo, it should obviously be "je vais faire un jogging" just like the other example.

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