Brushing Your Teeth: A Spanish A2 Reading
Read an A2 Spanish story about brushing for two minutes, using fluoride toothpaste, and caring for teeth and gums.
Aprendiendo a cuidar mis dientes
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About this article
What you'll learn
dental hygiene vocabulary, dentist visit, mouth parts, healthy habits, 16 study cards
A child learns that a favorite song lasts less than the recommended brushing time. During a dental visit, the dentist explains a twice-daily routine, age-appropriate fluoride toothpaste, and how sugary foods and drinks can contribute to cavities. The story practices vocabulary for teeth, gums, and molars.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
cepillarnos los dientes
newto brush our teeth
In Spanish, brushing your own teeth uses the reflexive pronoun -nos: cepillarnos = to brush (ourselves).
Essential daily hygiene phrase.
Me duele una muela
newmy back tooth hurts
Spanish does not make you the one who hurts. The tooth is the subject and you are a pronoun: me duele una muela, literally "a back tooth hurts to me". Swap the pronoun for other people: te duele, le duele, nos duele.
The one sentence you actually need at a dentist, built on the same pattern as me gusta.
visitar al dentista
newto visit the dentist
Spanish puts a in front of a person who is the object of the verb: visitar al dentista, never visitar el dentista. al is the contraction of a + el.
Common health phrase, and it drills the a + el contraction.
dar miedo
newit frightens us
Spanish has two ways to talk about fear. Tener miedo puts you first: tengo miedo, I am afraid. Dar miedo puts the scary thing first: el dentista me da miedo, the dentist frightens me. Dar miedo works like gustar.
Lets you say what scares you, not only that you are scared.
nos hace sentir más seguros
newit makes us feel more confident
hacer + infinitive means to make someone do or feel something: nos hace sentir = it makes us feel. Careful with seguros here: it means confident in yourself, not safe.
hacer + infinitive is how Spanish says that one thing causes another.
es importante para
newit is important for / in order to
es importante para + infinitive expresses purpose and importance of an action.
Core structure for explaining purpose and importance.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
toothbrush
el cepillo
the toothbrush
Cepillo comes from cepillar (to brush). el cepillo = the toothbrush.
Core dental hygiene word.
toothpaste
la pasta de dientes
toothpaste
la pasta de dientes is the standard Spanish term for toothpaste. pasta = paste/cream.
Essential hygiene vocabulary.
cavities
las caries
cavities
caries never changes for number in Spanish: la caries (one) and las caries (several) are spelled the same. English usually says cavities or tooth decay.
Important dental health word with an unusual invariable plural.
enamel
el esmalte
the enamel
el esmalte is the hard white layer that covers the tooth. The same Spanish word covers nail polish and the glaze on pottery.
Names the exact part of the tooth that brushing protects.
back tooth, molar
la muela
the molar
Spanish splits teeth in two: los dientes are the ones at the front, las muelas the wide ones at the back. The last to arrive are las muelas del juicio, literally the teeth of judgement.
You cannot say where a toothache is without this word.
gums
las encías
gums
encías = gums. Use suaves (soft) to describe toothbrush bristles to avoid hurting your gums.
Body part vocabulary related to dental care.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Reflexive verbs: debemos cepillarnos
debemos cepillarnos
we must brush (our teeth)
Reflexive verb cepillarse + nos makes it "brush ourselves". deber + infinitivo for obligation.
Reflexive verbs are essential A2 grammar.
Present negatives: no debemos comerlos
no debemos comerlos todos los días
we should not eat them
no goes straight in front of the verb: no debemos. debemos = we must, we should. comerlos = comer + los, where the object pronoun is attached to the end of the infinitive.
Teaches how to express prohibition and obligation in the negative.
Verbs like gustar: nos cuesta
nos cuesta
it is hard for us
costar here means to be difficult, and it behaves like gustar: the difficulty is the subject and the person is an indirect object pronoun. me cuesta, te cuesta, nos cuesta. It is not a reflexive verb.
One pattern that also gives you me gusta and me duele.
Concessive connector: aunque + subjunctive
Aunque nos dé miedo
although, even if
aunque means although. With the indicative it presents the fact as real and known: aunque nos da miedo, although it does scare us. With the subjunctive it plays the fact down as merely granted or possible: aunque nos dé miedo, even if it scares us. dé is the subjunctive of dar and carries an accent to keep it apart from the preposition de.
The choice between da and dé changes how firmly you state the fact.
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