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Bookmark or Share- "Play" or "playing" – which one is correct and why?Both "play" and "playing" is correct here. People often see him (who is) playing basketball on the playground at the weekend. People often see him (who) play basketball on the playground at the weekend. So essentially both carry the same meaning. –
- Should I say "She is in the park" or "She is at the park"?The boy is playing hockey on the street=street as a surface area. The boy is playing hockey in the street=confined within the street. Jill is at the stairway. (point in space) Jill is on the stairway. (on a surface) Jill is in the stairway. (within or confined) Write your name in the top left corner of the page. (confined within the corner)
- Why should we say "play the piano" instead of "play a piano"?We use the definite article for describing the skill of playing any musical instrument; we don't do that for non-musical instruments. So: I want to learn to play the piano. I want to learn to ride a bike. But also correct are both: I want to learn to play piano. I want to learn to ride bikes. It would be technically correct but very unidiomatic ...
- A group of boys is/are - English Language Learners Stack ExchangeA group of boys are playing football together. ["is" would be wrong or at least very weird here!] A group of boys are/is playing football on the field. ["is" and "are" mean slightly different things.] There is only one group of boys playing football on the field. ["are" would be wrong here!]
- Bare verb vs gerund: watching them play or playingI love watching them playing in the park. "Playing in the park" (or I suppose more technically just "playing") is a gerund phrase on its own, apart from "watching them". So what you are effectively saying is "I love watching them [noun]." As you probably know, nouns cannot be used as verbs. I love watching playing children.
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