Learn French: Elle se lave le visage avec une serviette.

Elle se lave le visage avec une serviette.

She washes her face with a towel.

Breakdown of Elle se lave le visage avec une serviette.

Questions & Answers about Elle se lave le visage avec une serviette.

What exactly does se do in this sentence?

se is a reflexive pronoun that means "herself" here. In French, these pronouns go right before the verb. So Elle se lave literally means "She washes herself."

Why does the French say le visage (the face) instead of son visage (her face)?

This is a major difference between French and English! Because the reflexive pronoun se already tells us she is washing herself, French doesn't repeat the ownership. When talking about body parts with reflexive verbs, you just use the word for "the" (le, la, or les).

If I want to say "I wash my face", do I still use se?

No, the reflexive pronoun has to match the person doing the action. For "I" (je), you use me, so you would say Je me lave le visage. The word se is only used for "he", "she", "one", or "they".

I noticed serviette uses une. Are there any tricks to remember that it is feminine?

While you usually just have to memorize a French noun's gender, there is a handy trick here: words ending in -ette (like une serviette) are almost always feminine.