Nous faisons du waterpolo vs Nous jouons au waterpolo?

Question

Nous ________ waterpolo.We play waterpolo."jouons au" is marked incorrect and "faisons du" is correct. Yet your explanation says to use "jouons au" for a sport that you play regularly. "We play waterpolo" means we play it regularly. That's an unambiguous English sentence. There is no other way to translate that. No English-speaking person would use the phrase "We play" for a single incident. They'd say, "We're playing waterpolo." This seems like a bug to me. Even the article you link to earlier in this discussion uses "jouons au" for waterpolo. Either you need to explain this better or change the quiz answer.ETA: In fact, if you type "We play water polo" into Google translate, it says "Nous jouons au water polo." If you google "jouer à vs faire de" you get this explanation:To remember when to use each verb: if the sport involves a ball, use jouer. If not, use faire.Someone brought this up 3 years ago. You updated the lesson 2 months ago. This should've been addressed already.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Janet,
I took a look at this test question and I can confirm that both "jouons au" and "faisons du" are both accepted as correct answers. I took a look at your test history and I can see what happened. I've transferred your query via our Helpdesk to give you more details. ;-)
Merci et bonne journée !

Answer

Bonjour Janet,
Thank you for getting back to us about this query and keeping us on our toes ;-)! It's always nice to see Kwiziq users taking their French learning journey so seriously. That's the way to make progress and we really appreciate having users such as ourself as it helps improving our content.
Regarding "playing waterpolo", both "faire de" and "jouer à" are accepted and commonly used in France. I would refer you to Cécile's great answer - faire du waterpolo - which explains the slight French subtlety in this very instance.
Also, I would like to point out that when a Kwiziq team member is checking and/or updating a lesson (being the content and/or a test question), our system automatically updates and displays it out on the top left corner (Last updated: ...) - even though no changes have been done. I can understand that it might look as if we've made changes but it is not always the case.
If you have any further concerns we’d be happy to address them more personally with a look at your specific test answers, via a helpdesk email (using our Help & Support page: Help & Support or via the Report it button displayed in lessons and in your Correction board)
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Answer

I guess the difference is between "We play waterpolo" vs. "We are playing waterpolo". The first one talks about the general activity, maybe you're in a team and you go to training 3 times a week. The second one talks about being in the pool and playing at this very moment. With this in mind, it is maybe clearer why faire du waterpolo is preferred. It's a subtle difference, but the flavor is a bit different.

Answer

Chris -

Re: "I guess the difference is between "We play waterpolo" vs. "We are playing waterpolo". The first one talks about the general activity..."

Kwiziq says to use "jouons au" for a sport that you play regularly. So again, "jouons au" should be the correct answer.

Besides the fact that even "we are playing water polo" (which is not the sentence on the quiz) is translated as "jouons au." I have no idea why Kwiziq accepts "faisons du" as correct, since I can't find their explanation anywhere in any of their lessons — or even anywhere on the internet. But I've learned that the Kwiziq staff would rather engage in an interminable argument before they admit to ever making a mistake.

ETA: It looks like they quietly updated the lesson about six weeks ago. Now it says to use "faire de" for regular activities, and they've removed water polo altogether. Google translate still uses "jouons au" though, even when I add the words "regularly" or "each week." I guess Kwiziq got tired of trying to explain their logic.