How often do you brush your teeth? Sure, we’ve all been told the ‘twice-a-day’ , but how many of us strictly follow it?
Are there any cultures out there with alternative practices that still maintain good oral health?
I’m intrigued to hear your brushing habits, thoughts on this, and any interesting findings you’ve stumbled upon.
I’m not the guy, but I’d like to challange my English by talking about this topic. I brush my teeth on a “when I remember to” or “when it’s really dirty”. so like twice weekly probably. If I need to apear tidy I ofc brush before it. the only problem with my teeth is that they are not straight, very all over the place actually (hope fully I can get braces soon). Regarding cleannes, (to my knowladge) all my teeth are fine, except of a bit of tartar (hopefully correct word, the hard stuff that acumilates and sticks to your teeth) on two of my teeth. The scary part is thst the dentists I’ve been to did not say anything about it, which leaves me to think they didn’t even see it, that leaves me again to, what else didn’t they notice? The thing that I notice and hints that I should brush is the frequent canker sores (again, let’s hope the right word, little annoying ass white spots that, apears, hurts than dips)
TL;DR: fine, nothing unfixable, minor annoyance
I vibe with that. I’ve been trying to learn a new language as well, so let me try and provide you with the kind of direct feedback that I wish more people would give me. Overall your writing is good enough that I would believe you were a native speaker, albeit a sloppy one. To take your writing to the next level, here’s what I’d change:
This can be rephrased slightly into a more natural expression:
Why: Saying that you do something “on a X basis” is a very common pattern for this type of expression. I switched to using “/” instead of “or” here to because this particular pattern is so strongly fixed that we can’t add extra words to it without sounding unnatural. I also combined the sentences together because one single compound sentence is generally more pleasing than two simple ones.
Yup, that’s exactly the right word. It would have also been acceptable for you to say “gunk”, since “tartar” is a specialized word that not everyone will know.
You’ve made excellent use of the trailing question mark! This is exactly the right tone for what I believe you were going for here, though your verb tenses are a little mixed up. Here’s what I’d change to bring the tenses back into alignment:
Why Part 1: You’ve combined “I’ve been to” (present perfect tense) with “did not say” (past tense) inside of the same clause. Mismatches like this sound quite bad because native speakers have a strong intuition for tense construction. Here the issue is fixed by simply changing the entire clause into the past tense, though we could have just as easily done the opposite and made the whole clause present perfect (i.e.: “the dentists I’ve been to won’t say anything about it”).
Why Part 2: It gets difficult to read sentences when they become this long, so I broke it into two. Note the much shortened second sentence. I did this because English speakers tend to favor a kind of long/short/long/short rythm in speech and writing. Less grammar on “down beats” feels better. It’s a pretty cool trick to use once you get the hang of it, don’t you agree?
This sentence is actually a really good learning opportunity because it reveals something about English-speaking culture: we hate attributing actions to passive objects. Yes… it’s not technically wrong to say “the things that hint I should brush are canker sores”, but it still feels wrong unless you’re writing poetically. Here’s how I’d write it instead:
Why: Canker sores no longer do the hinting. It’s you who gets the canker sores and they merely exist as hints. Alternatively, you could even phrase it like this: “Increasingly frequent canker sores tell me that I should brush”. If we anthropomorphize “canker sores” as actively intelligent beings, we’re allowed to attribute actions to them without falling into the “passive object action” trap. Yes… this stupid language really works like that. We will go so far as to pretend that canker sores are sentient if it means we can blame stuff on them. I am sorry 🙏
You don’t need to be sorry to anything at all. I learnt from you. Even if understanding/using the things I just read will take time I have heard things that I didn’t know existed. Like the alternating long/short. Imma start paying more attension to that maybe ppl actually use it, and I’ve just been ignoring it. The other thing is not to “attribute” objects. It’s kinda a bummer because I feel like my mother tounge uses it a lot, so I kinda think that way. Is it correct to phrase it like: “the increase in X tells me” or “the increase in X leads me to”? Does the focus have to be on X (only giving it adjectives, I believe you’ve done that)?
I’m fucking ashamed that probably the single largest info drop that I got for speaking tips came from me being a fucking slob… (I should change)
Also what is that “new language” that you been trying to learn, maybe just maybe, it’s mine :)
side note: I always have problems with edge case (at least for me) tenses, when the “perfect” is in there I’m out of there. Thx again.
^I tried using short/long in this post btw, hope it worked
This is basically just a trick to sound more natural with less grammar, so feel free to pick and choose when to use it. So far I think you’ve struck a pretty good balance!
Yes, both of these sentences sound very natural to me. I think you’ve gotten the hang of it
Japanese! I’m a mega-weaboo lol
Yeah, you might want to work on your hygiene… It’s OK, though. We all have our circumstances and other people on the internet are rarely as perfect as they claim to be!
It’s less about the pattern of the sentence and more about a grammatical concept called the “agent”. The agent is the “doer” of the sentence. In English, the agent is usually (not always!) based on the sentence subject and native speakers will use one of several different tricks to shuffle the agent around when talking about an inanimate subject. I’ll list a few additional ways of doing this below to help illustrate:
Unnatural: My shirt wrinkled
This is a normal type of sentence, so the agent is the subject (“my shirt”). An inanimate agent sounds unnatural, so try to avoid this
Natural: My shirt is wrinkled
In this sentence we’ve introduced a copula (“is”) as the main verb of the sentence. Copula-based sentences like this one describe states of being and thus contain no action at all (e.g.: “My shirt is red” – no action!). No action means no agent. No agent means no problem!
Natural: My shirt got wrinkled
This is a way of speaking called the “passive voice” which implies a hidden agent as the true doer of the action. Since the agent is hidden, it won’t be based on the subject, so an inanimate subject can be used without sounding unnatural.
Natural: My shirt wrinkled itself
This is a way of speaking called the “reflexive voice” which you can use if the verb in question also has a transitive form (AKA: if it’s a “labile verb”). In the reflexive voice, all agents automatically become animate. No inanimate agent means no problem!
Natural: The sun rose
Some non-living things are still considered to be animate. These are almost always things which appear to move of their own volition, such as celestial bodies (“The moon shone”) or vehicles (“The boat sank”). There’s no problem with using animate things as the agent!
Thanks again. I’m not Japanese, or know it, so I can’t help you with that one, sorry. May I ask whether you’re and english major? You say so much grammar so confidently, are you a teacher perhaps? The thing about agents I only heard once or twice in English class.
I’m Hungarian btw, and I know how hard our language is, so I figured I could be of great help. It’s probably for the best as even I don’t know how to speak this
shitculture rich language correctly :/Nah, I’m just a college dropout who has weird interests lol! It has been my sincere pleasure to help out another learner 😊
Greetings from across the ocean in Atlanta, GA!
This is the type of shit I missed seeing on Reddit. It’s a breath of fresh breath 😃 seeing someone just genuinely caring to help someone learn a second language because it’s a kind thing to do. Thank you both for this interaction!
Main reason you need to brush daily is because plaque turns to tarter after about 24-36 hours. Plaque is soft and can be brushed off. Tarter on the other hand is hard as your enamel. Brushing will not remove tarter. Overtime the tarter will build up and get under your gums and cause your teeth to separate from your jaw. It’s why going to the dentist twice a year for a cleaning is so necessary as they will scrape off the tarter that builds up.
Gum health is another factor that brushing alone will not take care off. Flossing will prevent bacteria growth and infections. That’s another source of how people lose their teeth as they get older.
Bottom line is without daily oral care you will lose your teeth as you age.
im in trouble then 🙃
Only if you keep doing what you’re doing. You have a choice ultimately.
yes, well, I don’t plan to stay like this ofc.