Breakdown of Le garçon se douche et se brosse les dents.
le garçon
the boy
et
and
se doucher
to shower
se brosser
to brush
la dent
the tooth
se
himself, herself, themselves (reflexive)
Questions & Answers about Le garçon se douche et se brosse les dents.
Why do we need the word se before douche and brosse?
Why is se repeated twice? Couldn't we just say se douche et brosse?
Why does the French sentence use les dents (the teeth) instead of ses dents (his teeth)?
In English, we say "he brushes his teeth". But in French, when you talk about body parts, you don't use possessive words like "my" or "his". Instead, the reflexive pronoun (se) already tells us whose body it is! You just use a simple "the" (les for plural) before the body part. So, se brosse les dents literally means "brushes himself the teeth".
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