3. What sports are popular where you live?

two people playing cricket

We asked some of our friends and family about what sports are popular where they live. This is what they said.

Here in France, football is probably the most popular sport. The men's team has done well in World Cups in recent years, and women's football has really grown in popularity since France hosted the Women's World Cup in 2019. Another really popular sport is cycling. The Tour de France is a famous race that passes through the country, and millions of people watch it on TV. 
Jo, France

Football is the most popular sport in the UK, but rugby is also very popular. Every winter, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy play against each other in a competition called The Six Nations. Cricket is a very popular summer sport. It's played worldwide, but was first played in England. Cricket matches last a long time. Shorter matches are three hours long, but others can last up to five days!
Tony, UK

Football is massive here! I'd say football is the big one. People also love basketball, padel – a Mexican racket sport – and cycling. On weekends, you always see lots of people on bikes and wearing cycling gear in the national parks and mountains. In Catalonia, an early morning bike ride is the perfect excuse to stop for a big late breakfast!
Jo, Catalonia, Spain

I'd say American football, basketball and baseball are the most popular sports in the US, though there are many others such as ice hockey, soccer, softball, boxing and lacrosse, to name just a few. Sports are a really important part of life at school and even university. Most professional athletes played their sports in a competitive university league before going pro.
Kirk, USA

Popular sports in Hong Kong are running, swimming, badminton, basketball, football and table tennis. Some people do martial arts like wing chun and taekwondo. I'm not sure whether hiking, yoga and the gym count as sports since they're not competitive, but they're very popular ways to keep fit too.
Jonathan, Hong Kong

What about you?

  • Do you do or watch any of these sports?
  • What sports are popular in your country?
  • What sports do you enjoy doing or watching?  

Write about it in the comments!
 

Average: 4.3 (7 votes)

Submitted by jtorrez on Thu, 09/07/2026 - 08:43

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  • 1. What sports do you do?
    I practice kitesurfing, I love this sport, I´m feelt free when I do it.
  • 2. Sports idioms
  • 3. What sports are popular where you live?
    I currently live in Australia, here de most important sport is rugby league, a bit diffeten than the rugby union, the people practice a lot sport, like a golf, tennis, football and some aquatic sports, that its the most popular is surf.
    I´m from Argentina, there the best sport is football.
  • 4. Who's your favourite sportsperson?
    At the moment Leonel Messi, maybe whe win a new world coup :D
  • 5. Reflection – sport and fitness
    I think is very important practice some sport and keep in movement, workout with weight have a lot benefit a long time, your muscles and your bones keeps strong, your body and your mind are greatful.
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Submitted by NanaFirdausiAb… on Wed, 08/07/2026 - 13:26

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The most popular sport in Nigeria is football; I mean, every household always has a ball lying around. Apart from that, there are also table tennis and smoker, although they are not as popular as football, they are also a used to kill boredom most of the time.

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Submitted by PYLORY on Wed, 08/07/2026 - 12:56

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  1.  I don't watch any of these sports.  I enjoy watching TV winters sports.
  2. I'm not sure, but I believe football is the most popular sport in my country.
  3. I enjoy practicing pole sport, exotic pole, running and rollerblading and I like watching TV winters sports.

 

Submitted by yoamoamiperro on Tue, 07/07/2026 - 21:25

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Hi everyone

In Argentine, the most popular sport is Football (soccer in USA). But Tennis is a sport that the people enjoy and many play it  during the year, and watch the tournaments.

Patricia from Buenos Aires

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Submitted by ZeinabYasser30 on Mon, 06/07/2026 - 13:59

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Hi, I am Zainab 

Here in Egypt, Football is popular sport. The people is keen on the world cup nowadays,so they are cheering for the the Egyptian national team to win the World Cup.

Submitted by jtorrez on Mon, 06/07/2026 - 11:34

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I currently live in Australia, here de most important sport is rugby league, a bit diffeten than the rygby union, the people practice a lot sport, like a golf, tennis, futball and some aquatic sports, that its the most popular is surf.
I´m from Argentina, there the best sport is football.

Submitted by black_rose2022 on Mon, 06/07/2026 - 06:39

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In Indonesia the badminton and football are the most favorite sports. I like watching and doing badminton. But my favorite sport is swimming even I rarely do it.

Submitted by MAI NGOC on Fri, 26/06/2026 - 19:29

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yeah actually, i always play basketball with my friend. Usually, I can meet a lot people in the basketball court in the school and near my home. Specially, I admire many basketball players in NBA and WNBA. In Viet Nam, football more popular than basketball, so I want it to become increasingly popular

Submitted by 4zwiah on Sat, 13/06/2026 - 19:41

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  • Do you do or watch any of these sports?

    yes actually I used to play handball when I was in high school then I turned to workouts Its gave me energy, handsome look as will as mentally relaxation.

     

  • What sports are popular in your country?

    Football head the first place in Iraq and then lots of tennis, domino , ect

     

  • What sports do you enjoy doing or watching?

    football in world cup if my national team was in  

Submitted by katherine.velasquez on Thu, 11/06/2026 - 23:34

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  • Do you do or watch any of these sports?

    I'm not so a fan of watching sports but sometimes I watch football matches when my friends meet up or there's an exciting finale

  • What sports are popular in your country?

    Football heads the 1st place and almost the only sport people in my country is crazy about, minor teams in Universities play and practice other sports like Tennis, Padel, Swimming, some organize hiking routines, etc.

  • What sports do you enjoy doing or watching?

    I love hikinga and lifting weights, even though these are not quite considered a sport is something I enjoy so much doing because it helps me relax and breath fresh and pure air when I go into the woods, I love burning calories doing hiking in the nature, although don't like that it takes much of my time and lifting heavy weights helps me sleep better and get in shape, being concious of all the benefits makes me want to do it for life, it became a game changer in so many aspects of my life, it's funny I started it because I just wanted to look better, but it ended up going beyond the idea of just a nice looking body for me.

Hi Katherine!

I'm really interested in lifting weights but I really don't know where to start. Would you have any suggestions for me? I belong to a gym but feel a little embarrassed to ask how and where to start. I do love to go walking where I live. Especially along the seafront or up in the hills which aren't too far away from where I live. Last weekend I did a walk which took about 4.5 hours. It was lovely and the weather was just right, not too hot and with a small breeze. Here's a photo that I took. We walked all the way along the cliff tops. Where do you like to go hiking?

~ Tina ツ
LearnEnglish team

Submitted by BurakAcar on Sat, 01/04/2023 - 06:00

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I should say Football for Turkey. Some Turkish football clubs have about twenty-thirty millions fans. So many football clubs have stadiums with a lot of capacity. Football even determines agenda of Turkey, people talk about Football everyday. Football clubs make and spend so much money. Although Turkish football is not so good as much as old days fans love football still so much and they wait when Turkish football become like old days. At the same time, so many people like watching basketball. Also so many football clubs have basketball teams.

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Submitted by stefherz on Wed, 15/03/2023 - 02:48

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Here in Brazil football is definitely the most popular sport (as in most parts of the world as it seems. Why is that so... ?). But as I live in a costal region, surfing is also very popular and people come from all over Brazil to surf here.
In terms of following matches or competitions, I'm really not much of a sports fan. What would interest me most are the more artistic sports, like dancing or artistic gymnastics, but even though I don't care about watching any performances.
I enjoy doing sports though. At the moment I'm not that active, but I already tried a great number of different sports in the past (dancing, gymnastics, hiking, climbing, cycling, skiing, the Brazilian martial art Capoeira...) and I hope to be able to get back to one of them in the near future!

Submitted by Edgarmtz21 on Wed, 15/03/2023 - 00:34

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I along with my friends play football in our town. This is a very interesting game that teaches us brotherhood, leadership qualities, & helping nature qualities. The most popular sport in my country. FIFA estimates that more than eight million Mexicans play soccer on more than 17,000 teams! and definitely i love watch baseball and soccer on tv.

Submitted by loanphuong on Thu, 09/03/2023 - 04:06

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I watched these sports in reality before, when I was a student in high school. So sports matches were unprofessional. I also was a volleyball player. But I was not good at it.

Football is a king sport in my country. Everyone loves it! We have a lot of love for football, especially men’s football. If our men’s football team wins the prize in a big league like the Asian league, everyone will go out to celebrate.

Football players, who played in that match, would be awarded a lot of prize money and would be loved by fans across the whole country.

My government invests a lot of money to develop young talent in this sport.
Besides that, in my country, people also like running, cycling, badminton, and trekking. But these sports are not as popular as football.

My favorite sport is badminton. I usually play badminton every weekend with my ex-roommate. In the future, I want to watch a professional badminton league. Apart from that, I also like walking exercise. I do it in one hour around 10.000 steps every day in the afternoon. I really enjoy walking day by day, because I can keep my body in shape and help my mind feel better after a long hard working day.

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Submitted by Andres Felipe … on Sun, 05/03/2023 - 03:50

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I'd say soccer! Here in my country every weekend and sometimes weekdays soccer is played here a lot in championships. Also, people from my neighborhood gets together, create groups of people and go to a little soccer field to play it.
There is a tournament here that is played every first week of January, it is called San Juan friendship championship. It is the first soccer tournament played of the world.

Submitted by Feroga1960 on Thu, 23/02/2023 - 18:24

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I like sports, all of them. My favorite sport is football like most Spanish people, but I like to watch others like tennis, running, basketball too.

Submitted by khuludaljoufi on Thu, 23/02/2023 - 11:40

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In Saudi Arabia the famous sport is soccer, and I see it’s international sport it’s has much fans than other sports , but for me I didn’t watch this sport in TV and I didn’t know whose a famous player because I’m not interested in it , so I’d like to discover some sport I really like and play it

Submitted by JuanCruz on Fri, 17/02/2023 - 16:37

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Here in Mallorca-Spain football is de most popular sport. A lot of young people practice football in schools and clubs, the rest of the society whatch it in tv programs.

Cycling it's popular too. In the weekend is easy to see bigs groups with bicycles in the different roads.

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Submitted by fede0108 on Sun, 12/02/2023 - 14:10

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I do some of those sports. Like cycling, running and a bit of yoga. I enjoy watching the super bowl once a year. Football is DEFINITELY the most popular sport in Argentina. People love to play it but especially watch it! The world cup gets people really crazy!!! In December, we won it! So the people ran outside to celebrate and covered the street. I'll leave a pic to show you that. I LOVE in-line skating. I can do it for hours!!!

Pretty nice! Football is also very popular here in Colombia. My favorite football team is Atletico Nacional. I remember going to the stadium every time they played in Medellin. I loved how everybody in the stadium were singing, jumping and clapping to support the team, also the people hug each other when the team scores a goal. It is an amazing experience!

Submitted by Sayed Aamr on Sun, 12/02/2023 - 08:18

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Here in New Zealand Rugby is a famous sport. And most people love to watch the matchs.

Submitted by Adelarch3 on Fri, 10/02/2023 - 01:26

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I'm not interested in watching sports unless it's something really popular like the finals of the world cup or something similar. In Saudi Araba Football is the most popular sport but I don't find it joyful to watch it.
Personally, Boxing is more interesting and fun

Submitted by Juank4 on Thu, 09/02/2023 - 16:30

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Football is the most popular sport in my country Perú and some countries of south America. The principal reason is because is one of the oldest popular sport of south america(The british transport this sport by boots) in the Atlantic ocean, specially in the "Rio de la Plata"(19's to 20's century) and we have the ancient tournament in the world(Copa America in 1916) at Buenos Aires city, to celebrate the 100 years of independence of Argentina. and in 2016 celebrate the "Copa America centenario".

Submitted by uttambro on Tue, 07/02/2023 - 18:20

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I personally belong to India and here the most popular sport among the people, mainly young teens, is 'cricket'. I used to play this outdoor game till my studies got heavier.It is really a fantastic sport to play and show the inner intent.I loved playing this sport in the field till two years back and now love watching its national and international matches on the smartphone. It deserves the hype indeed:)

Submitted by dhia39 on Tue, 07/02/2023 - 06:16

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here in ALGERIA , football is one of the popular sports that are played across the country.

Submitted by Salma Ayman on Sun, 05/02/2023 - 11:41

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In Egypt the most popular sports are football, basketball, swimming, handball and tennis 🎾
I enjoy when watching swimming and tennis 😊
I want to keep fit so I eat healthy food , I like walk and run twice a month, It's not many but I hope increase this habit
My best friend Dalia like sports so much but she didn't eat halthy food

Submitted by ciber2540 on Wed, 01/02/2023 - 16:48

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In Colombia the most popular sport are the soccer and the cycling. We have a good players of soccer in diferents leagues of europe and with the cycling some colombian cyclist have win races in the tour of france, giro de italia and the vuelta a españa.

Submitted by DOWLOW11 on Tue, 31/01/2023 - 18:49

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here in Ethiopia, football is one of the popular sports that are played across the country.

Submitted by Piu on Tue, 31/01/2023 - 14:01

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In India cricket is the most popular game. In world cup which heppen 4 year gap, when the cricket world cup happened people going to crazy.