Le garçon se douche et se brosse les dents.

Questions & Answers about Le garçon se douche et se brosse les dents.

Why do we need the word se before douche and brosse?
In French, everyday actions that you perform on yourself—like showering, getting dressed, or brushing your teeth—use reflexive verbs. The word se is a reflexive pronoun that means "himself" here. So literally, the sentence says the boy is showering himself and brushing himself.
Why is se repeated twice? Couldn't we just say se douche et brosse?
In French, you usually have to repeat the reflexive pronoun before every single verb in the sentence, even if they are connected by et (and). Because of this rule, you must say se douche et se 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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