So you are coming to the UK and you are going to be making new friends, one of the questions that you are probably asking yourself is what kind of games people your age play in the UK.

Sports and Games

Well, the answer to that question is that people in the UK love games and have invented many of the world’s most favourite ones including football, tennis and rugby.

But it isn’t just outside sports that are popular, British people spend more money each year on puzzles, crosswords and board games than any other country in the world. If you go into a toy shop on a British high street you will probably find over half of it is devoted to board games, which are great for large groups of you to play around a table when the weather isn’t too good, which unfortunately in the UK can be quite often.

These games are not only popular because of the bad weather! People in the UK love words and any kind of puzzles or games to do with word association are always really popular.

Party Games

Most parties include a game of charades, which is where you have to act out the name of a book, film or situation, without speaking, and everyone else has to guess what it is. And every long family car journey usually ends up including a game of ‘eye-spy’, which is where somebody starts by saying “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with …(a letter) and then everybody else takes it in turns to guess what the object is.

Computer Games

But nowadays even these popular games are having their popularity threatened by the huge increase in computer games, especially amongst the younger generation. A lot of people, particularly boys, spend more and more time either on-line, gaming with other people around the world, or just hanging out at home with their friends and playing computer games.

Despite many parents worrying about their children becoming addicted and spending too much time staring at a screen, instead of getting outside in the fresh air, the fact is that the UK computer game huge and is growing every year.

But even though it rains a lot in the UK, you will still see loads of people out in the parks playing frisbee, football or cricket.

Traditional Games

Table-football and Pool are two other very popular indoor games that you might encounter when you come to the UK, but another game that you are less likely to have come across is the very British game of darts.

Darts is a game played between at least 2 people using darts (small arrows) and a round numbered darts board. There are a number of different games that you can play on a darts board but the most popular one in the UK is 501.  Basically each player starts at the number 501 and takes it in turns to throw their 3 darts at the board, the first person to reduce this amount to zero wins. This game has always been popular in the UK but it is starting to grow around the world, at the moment it is particularly popular amongst the Dutch.

Another very popular British game is snooker, this is similar to pool but played on a much larger table and has more complicated rules; it has a huge following in the UK and has become very popular in China over the last 10 years as-well.

By John Hillman .

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USEFUL WORDS

puzzle = a game that you have to think about very carefully in order to answer it or do it

crossword = a game in which you have to fit words across and downwards into spaces in a square diagram

board game = any game played on a board, often using dice and small pieces that are moved around

word association = a game where you have to think of words which are connected in some way to other words

charades = a game in which one person acts out the syllables of a word or title and the others try to guess what it is

eye-spy = a game where somebody starts by saying “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with …(a letter)” and then everybody else tries to guess what the object is

gaming = playing computer games

frisbee = a light plastic object, shaped like a plate, that is thrown from one player to another in a game

table football = a game usually for two players who move plastic football figures fixed on long bars across a table to score goals using a plastic ball

pool = a game for two people played with 16 coloured balls on a table, often in pubs and bars.  Players use long wooden sticks (cues) to try to hit balls into pockets at the edge of the table

snooker = similar to pool, but using 15 red and 6 other coloured balls

darts = a game in which small pointed objects are thrown at a round board marked with numbers for scoring

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

At Sophie’s, to the doctor’s etc.

We’re all meeting at Dave’s for an evening of board games (house/flat)

There is a pool table at the Thomson’s (house/flat)

Is there a baker’s near here? (shop)

I was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s (surgery)

They sell puzzle books in Tesco’s

There’s a Barclays Bank on the High Street