_bertie_

[upper trail]

Please be patient

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[gloomy rapids]

i think it's because usually the verb "jouer" is followed by the preposition "á". Á+ le=au

i am only around a2 tho so I hope someone more qualified will chime in and explain better

[sand wraith]

Just seen another example - if you say 'I play the piano' it becomes 'je joue du piano'. Now I'm more confused as I don't understand why 'du' is following 'joue' when it would seem to me that the nouns tennis / piano are being used in the same way in both sentences.

[rain coyote]

Jouer uses different prepositions depending on the sense

"playing a role" takes no preposition
"playing a game" takes « à »
"playing an instrument" takes « de »

[gloomy rapids]

yes i was about to say what I stated only applied to sports as far as i could tell

[sand wraith]

Is this just one of those things you're meant to remember or is there a rule for it - does it apply to other verbs?

[rain coyote]

Not just sports, games in general

[gloomy rapids]

great explanation, helped me quite a lot too

[rain coyote]

Prepositions are quite random across languages. Sometimes there are certain rules in specific contexts. Mostly just memorization

[sand wraith]

Ok thanks for the clarification!

[gloomy rapids]

yes, it will be more of an instinctive thing after you were exposed to the language enough

although sometimes I still f up prepositions in english as well, if they are different to those that my native tongue uses for different nouns

[sand wraith]

I'm English so I don't have that problem 😃

[prisma carbon]

💯