Personal hygiene

Lesson Overview: Personal Hygiene in Spanish

This lesson focuses on everyday vocabulary and expressions related to personal hygiene products and routines, such as buying items for home hygiene and talking about when we use them, employing time expressions like antes (before), después (after), and cuando (when).

Key Vocabulary and Expressions

• Productos de higiene personal: desodorante, champú, gel, crema hidratante, pasta de dientes, cepillo de dientes, jabón líquido, spray facial, perfume
• Common time expressions: antes, antes de, después, después de, cuando
• Routine verbs: lavar(se), cepillar(se), peinar(se), aplicar, usar

Content Highlights

The lesson provides practical dialogue scenarios to practice conversations when purchasing hygiene products in farmacia (pharmacy) or tiendas (stores), and discussing daily hygiene routines. These help learners apply temporal expressions alongside verb conjugations to describe habitual actions realistically.

Verb Usage and Conjugations

Important verbs related to hygiene routines are introduced in the pretérito imperfecto tense to talk about habitual past actions (e.g., me peinaba, te lavabas). These conjugations are essential for describing daily habits or routines with precision.

Practical Examples

• "Antes, siempre me peinaba después de ducharme." (Before, I always combed my hair after showering.)
• "Cuando tenía alergia, usaba un jabón especial." (When I had an allergy, I used a special soap.)
• "Después de cepillarme los dientes, aplico la crema hidratante." (After brushing my teeth, I apply moisturizer.)
• "Antes de salir, siempre me lavaba las manos con jabón." (Before going out, I always washed my hands with soap.)

Differences Between English and Spanish Instructions and Useful Phrases

In Spanish, reflexive verbs like lavarse, cepillarse, and peinarse are commonly used when talking about personal hygiene routines. These reflexive constructions emphasize that the subject performs the action on themselves, which differs from English where the reflexive pronoun is sometimes optional or less frequent.

Useful phrases include:

• Antes de salir – Before leaving
• Después de ducharme – After showering
• Cuando tengo la piel seca – When I have dry skin
• Siempre uso desodorante antes de salir – I always use deodorant before going out

Understanding these time expressions helps accurately describe routines and sequences of actions, enriching communicative abilities in daily contexts.