Learn Hardcore French: Le médecin regarde mon œil droit et dit que tout va bien. - The doctor looks at my right eye and says that everything is fine.

The subject here is le médecin, which is third person singular (il/elle), so you use regarde.
Regarder would be used after another verb (e.g. il va regarder, he is going to look), and regardes is only for tu (you singular).

Why don’t we use a preposition like à (e.g. regarde à mon œil)?

In French, regarder is a direct transitive verb: it takes its object directly, with no preposition.

regarder quelque chose = to look at something
→ Le médecin regarde mon œil.

Saying regarder à mon œil here would be incorrect.
There is a different expression regarder à in some contexts (e.g. regarder à la dépense = to be careful with spending), but that’s a different meaning, not the literal sense of looking at a physical thing.

Could we use voit instead of regarde here?

You could grammatically say Le médecin voit mon œil droit, but the meaning changes.

voir = to see (a passive perception)
regarder = to look at / to examine (an intentional action)

In the context of a medical examination, the doctor is intentionally examining your eye, so regarde mon œil droit is the natural choice.
voit mon œil droit would sound more like he/she sees my right eye (it’s visible), not he/she is examining it.

Why is it Le médecin and not Un médecin or Mon médecin?

All three are possible, but they don’t mean the same thing:

Le médecin = the doctor
→ usually refers to the specific doctor in the situation, known from context (for example, the one examining you right now).
Un médecin = a doctor
→ introduces a doctor you haven’t mentioned before, not one already known in the conversation.
Mon médecin = my (regular) doctor / my GP
→ emphasizes that this doctor is your personal doctor.

In a story or neutral description of a visit, Le médecin regarde… is very typical: we both know which doctor we’re talking about (the one in the scene).

Why is it mon œil and not ma œil?

The noun œil (eye) is masculine in French, so you must use the masculine possessive adjective:

mon œil (my eye)
un œil (an eye)
l’œil (the eye)

Ma is used only with feminine singular nouns:

ma main (my hand)
ma jambe (my leg)

So ma œil is incorrect. Also note: mon is also used before a feminine noun starting with a vowel sound (e.g. mon amie), but here œil is genuinely masculine anyway.

What’s the difference between œil and yeux, and why is œil used here?

un œil = one eye (singular)
les yeux = the eyes (plural)

The plural of œil is irregular: it becomes yeux, not œils.

In the sentence, the doctor is looking at one specific eye, the right one, so French uses the singular:

mon œil droit = my right eye

If the doctor were looking at both eyes, you’d say:

Le médecin regarde mes yeux. = The doctor looks at my eyes.

Why is it mon œil droit and not mon droit œil?

In French, most adjectives come after the noun they describe.
Droit (right, as in right-hand side) normally follows the noun:

l’œil droit (the right eye)
la main droite (the right hand)
la jambe droite (the right leg)

Some very common adjectives come before the noun (e.g. petit, grand, beau, bon, jeune, vieux), but droit in this spatial sense is not one of them.

So mon droit œil sounds wrong to a native speaker; the natural order is mon œil droit.

Why is the adjective droit and not droite?

Adjectives in French agree in gender and number with the noun:

œil is masculine singular
→ the adjective must be masculine singular: droit

Compare with a feminine noun:

la main (hand) is feminine
→ la main droite (the right hand)

And for plurals:

les yeux droits (right eyes) – masculine plural
les mains droites – feminine plural

So, with mon œil (masculine singular), the correct form is droit, not droite.

Why do we need que in dit que tout va bien?

Here que is the conjunction that, introducing a subordinate clause:

Le médecin dit que tout va bien.
= The doctor says that everything is fine.

In English, you can often drop that (He says everything is fine), but in French you normally must keep que:

✅ Il dit que tout va bien.
❌ Il dit tout va bien. (ungrammatical)

Without que, it sounds as if tout va bien were a direct object phrase, but French needs que to clearly mark the start of the reported statement.

Why do we say tout va bien and not tout est bien or tout va bon?

A few points:

Aller + bien/mal is a common expression meaning to be going well/badly:
- Tout va bien. = Everything is going well / Everything is fine.
- Ça va bien. = It’s going well / I’m fine.
Être + bien is possible but has a different feel, often about comfort or moral judgment:
- Je suis bien ici. = I feel good here.
- C’est bien. = That’s good (morally / in terms of quality).
Tout est bien does exist, but it’s more limited or literary (e.g. the proverb Tout est bien qui finit bien).
Bon is mostly an adjective meaning good (quality, taste, etc.), not used with aller in this sense:
- C’est un bon médecin. = He is a good doctor.
- You don’t say Tout va bon; that’s incorrect.

So, to express “Everything is fine / okay” in natural French, you say Tout va bien.

Why is it va (singular) in tout va bien and not vont?

Here tout is an indefinite pronoun meaning everything, and it is treated as grammatically singular:

Tout va bien. = Everything is going well.
Tout est prêt. = Everything is ready.

Because tout is singular, the verb must also be singular → va, not vont.

When you mean all (the people/things) and want a plural, you usually use tous / toutes with a plural noun:

Tous les patients vont bien. = All the patients are well.
Toutes les analyses sont bonnes. = All the tests are good.

How do you pronounce œil, and is there any liaison in mon œil droit?

œil is pronounced approximately like “uhy” in one syllable, with the French œ sound followed by a y sound:
- IPA: /œj/
In the phrase mon œil droit, there is a liaison between mon and œil:
- mon œil → /mɔn‿œj/
There is no liaison between œil and droit:
- mon œil droit → roughly /mɔn‿œj drwa/

So you join mon and œil together in speech, but then you start droit separately.