Speak English Confidently at the Dentist--Daily life English

Do you have teeth? If so, this English lesson is for you. I got this lovely email from my student Azra who said, I'm a dental student in Turkey. I love communicating with international people, learning languages and cultures. Can you help me learn how to talk about the dentist in English? Yes, Azra, I am here for you. And if you are not Azra, I'm here for you too. Today, you are going to learn 30 important English phrases to use at the dentist. You will also hear these in movies and TV shows. So no matter where you live, this is an important lesson. Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet with all 30 of these important phrases, definitions, sample sentences, and this PDF has something special for you. There is a 10 question quiz at the bottom of the PDF worksheet so that you can test yourself and see if you can really communicate at the dentist office accurately. You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today. Let's get started by talking about vocabulary for a regular dental checkup. And then in the second section, we'll talk about vocabulary for dental problems. If you're visiting the U.S. and you have a toothache or you have a problem and you need to get it fixed in the U.S., you are going to need that vocabulary. So stick around. Let's get started with the first vocabulary expression. To make an appointment. I need to make an appointment with the dentist for next week. Or on the phone, you might say, I'm calling to make an appointment for next week. This means that you're just scheduling a time so that you can go in and the dentist is waiting for you. Important expression number two is a checkup or a routine appointment. And sometimes we even combine those and say a routine checkup. So when you call the dentist and say, I would like to make an appointment, please, they will ask you, why do you want an appointment? And you might say, I just want a checkup or I would just like a routine appointment. Here in the U.S. it's common to go to the dentist at least once a year. Sometimes the dentist will say you need to go twice a year, but at least once a year for a routine appointment is common. So you could say, I would just like to come in for a routine appointment, please. Or I just like to come in for a checkup, please. And what happens at a routine appointment? Well, expression number three is to get your teeth cleaned. You might think your teeth are fine, but the dentist has some special tools that they can use to make sure that your teeth are actually clean and healthy. So you might say, I just want to get my teeth cleaned. Or the dentist will ask, why are you here today? You could say, I just want to get my teeth cleaned. While you're getting your teeth cleaned, you're going to need the next expressions. You will hear the word gums. Yes, this is with an S. This is not talking about chewing gum or bubble gum. This is talking about that red skin right here above your teeth, your gums. The dentist will check to make sure your gums are healthy. We never use this in the singular. The dentist is not going to say your gum is healthy. Instead, they will say your gums are healthy. At least we hope that's what they'll say, right? They will also check the enamel on your teeth. The enamel is the hard coating around your teeth that should be really healthy if you're going to have healthy teeth. So oftentimes, the dentist will polish the enamel on your teeth. Well, maybe I said that wrong because it's usually not the dentist who polishes the enamel on your teeth. It is the dental hygienist. Sometimes we just call this person a hygienist. That is the person who does most of the appointment. They will be checking your gums, cleaning your teeth, polishing the enamel on your teeth. And then after you finish that part of your appointment, who will come in? The dentist. So the dentist will check to make sure that everything is well. They will interpret the x-rays if you had x-rays. And if you need to have any more intensive surgeries or different things happening to your teeth, that is who will do it. The dentist will do those types of things. There's an interesting expression that we use that maybe explains why we say dental hygienist. We often use the phrase oral hygiene. Oral means your mouth and hygiene means to keep clean. So the dental hygienist is helping you to have good oral hygiene. They want to teach you how to brush your teeth well, how to floss your teeth well, and they are annually or yearly trying to help you have the best teeth possible for the best oral hygiene possible. Of course, during your dentist appointment, they will ask you to sit back in the chair, please. These types of fancy chairs, you sit in and it goes meeeeerrrr. And you can lay flat. There are bright lights above you, but you'll hear this phrase, sit back in the chair, please. Another thing that you will hear during your dental appointment is open wide. Now, the tricky thing is when the dental hygienist has his or her hands in your mouth, they are asking you questions sometimes about your life, different things going on, and how can you respond when they ask, oh, how's your job going? This happens all the time in the U.S. and I want to know for you, is it the same in your country? During your appointment, you might get x-rays. I mentioned this before and it is a common part of your routine checkup. It helps the dentist be able to see more deeply into your teeth and see if there are any problems that are starting. We'll talk about those problems in just a moment. The dental hygienist will probably encourage you to brush your teeth. In the U.S., we are told you should brush your teeth twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. What's it like in your country? At the dentist office, they will use toothpaste to brush your teeth. This is the common paste that you put on your toothbrush at home to brush your teeth. But there's something else that they often use in the dentist office, and that is fluoride. This is a type of treatment that they will either brush or wipe on the outside of your teeth, and it will help to coat your enamel to make it stronger and more resistant to any cavities and problems. And finally, during your routine appointment or your checkup, they will floss your teeth. Sometimes it's kind of uncomfortable in my opinion. I can floss my own teeth, but when someone else does it, it kind of feels uncomfortable. But they will floss your teeth to make sure there is nothing in them. And when you're completely done, you will need to gargle. What is gargle? Gargle is when you have water in your mouth and they will put it in there and you'll go, and then you'll probably spit it out. Sometimes they have a little tool that's a little vacuum and they put that in your mouth and you close over that little vacuum and it sucks the water out. So you might do that or you might just spit the water out. All right, we've talked about some routine appointment activities, but what happens when you have a dental problem? Let's talk about some vocabulary because you might need to use this if you live in the U.S. Or you might hear this if you're watching a medical drama on TV or movies or TV shows. These types of words come up a lot. The first dental problem is simply a toothache. This is probably because there's some rotting that's happening in your tooth. Maybe something got stuck there and it started to rot. So you might call the dentist and say, I don't know what's wrong, but I have a terrible toothache. Can I make an appointment? Another common dental problem is a sensitivity. So you could say, I have a sensitivity in this tooth. Whenever I drink cold water, I don't know what's wrong. Well, this is a great time to see the dentist because maybe there is a hole deep into your tooth, even if it's really small, that's reaching the nerve and that can make your tooth feel really sensitive. So if you have a sensitivity in any of your teeth, it's a good idea to tell the dentist during your routine checkup or make an appointment so that you can talk with the dentist. Another common problem is a cavity, or if there are multiple of them, cavities. Notice the pronunciation of this. There is a T at the end of this word, but in the U.S. we pronounce it like a D sound, cavity, cavities. And what's a cavity? Well, it's a hole in your tooth because some bacteria from food or sugar usually got stuck in your tooth and you didn't brush it out well and it started to rot at your tooth. This is a common reason why you might get a toothache. And in the U.S. unfortunately, it is very expensive to get a cavity filled. Usually they will scoop out that rotten part of your tooth and they will fill it with some kind of enamel filler. This is a very expensive process, but there are public clinics that you can sign up for that do it cheaper. So as I just mentioned, if you have a cavity, what do you need to get in there? Well, we call that a filling. So you might say I'm going to the dentist today to get a filling for the cavity that I have. That's the little material that they put inside your tooth. I need a filling. It's not the most fun thing, right? But sometimes it's necessary. If your cavity is really bad, you might need to get a crown. Oh, that sounds so exciting. You're a queen. You're a king. You get a crown. Not exciting. Not fun. A crown is like a little cap that goes over the entire tooth. If your tooth is cracked, or if the dentist is worried that you might crack your tooth because the cavity was so big, they will put a crown covering your entire tooth. Not as exciting as becoming the queen or king, right? A dreaded reason to go to the dentist is to have a root canal. This means that they are taking out your entire tooth because there is a problem. It's too rotten usually, and they have to extract the entire tooth. Do you know what it's called underneath your gums? Because your tooth is not just what you can see. Your tooth is like an iceberg. You can only see the top, but underneath, we call that the root, the root of your tooth. If you need to have a root canal, it means they need to take all of your tooth out, including the bottom. Drilling into your mouth sounds terrible. A similar idea, but not quite the same, is an extraction, or a similar expression is to have a tooth pulled. Now, you might have an extraction, or you might have a tooth pulled for other reasons, not because it's rotten. For example, when I was a child, my teeth had some problems. Some teeth were not falling out naturally. Babies have their teeth, or children have their teeth fall out and permanent teeth come in. But for me, some of my baby teeth were not coming in correctly. I had to go into the dentist office, and I had to have some teeth pulled. It wasn't because they were rotten. I didn't need a root canal. Instead, they had to pull the baby teeth, and that way the permanent teeth could come in more correctly. And I guess it worked. The next dental problem is kind of a funny one. It is your wisdom teeth. Now, why would wisdom teeth be a problem? We all want to be wise, right? If I can't be wise, at least I can have wise teeth. In the US, it is common practice to take out what we call your wisdom teeth. That's the teeth in the far back. And in the US, they say that our modern mouths are not big enough to hold those teeth, so we have to take them out so that you don't have teeth problems later in life. I don't know how true that is in reality, but it's a common practice. If you are a dentist, let me know in the comments if that's common in your country and if it's true or not that we really do need to take out our wisdom teeth to avoid other problems. When you get your wisdom teeth taken out, like when I did in high school, I had to get anesthesia. Anesthesia. This is a type of medicine, we could say, that makes it so that you don't feel what's going on. It could be a local anesthesia, which is a shot, and they'll help to numb that area, or it could be more general and you fall asleep. So when I had my wisdom teeth pulled, I fell asleep. I was totally out of it when they pulled my wisdom teeth. But if you have a cavity filled, you will just get local anesthesia called Novocaine. It's very common in the US. I know some countries give no anesthesia for cavities, but in the US, it is common practice. If you get a cavity filled in the US, you will definitely get a big shot with Novocaine so that you don't feel what they're doing. Another common problem with teeth is plaque. Now, plaque can also be like an award. I got a plaque at my job for selling so many things. But this is a bad plaque. Plaque is a buildup on your teeth. And when you go to the dentist, they will scrape off the plaque so that it doesn't build up and cause other problems. Another problem is tartar. Tartar. You will hear this during your regular checkup. The dentist or the dental hygienist will say, you have some tartar building up between these teeth, and that is hardened plaque. So plaque and tartar are common words that you will hear as problems during your dental checkup. And you can also ask the dental hygienist this, do you see much plaque? Do you see much tartar on my teeth? And that will tell you if you're doing a good job taking care of your teeth. Do you have good oral hygiene? I mentioned earlier that the dental hygienist will check the health of your gums. Here, the skin here. What if you have a problem with your gums? Well, a common gum problem is called gingivitis. This is a crazy word. Gingivitis is when you have a problem with your gums. It's really a bacterial infection and the dentist can help you to fix this, but you need to also take care of your gums and your teeth. The final two dental expressions that we're going to talk about today are how to help your teeth become better. The first one is whitening. This is very controversial, I understand, but some countries really are obsessed with whitening their teeth. There are different ways to do this. There's dental ways at the dentist's office. There are home ways that you can do this, but some countries really like to whiten their teeth. And our final expression is one also that helps you to make your teeth better, so to speak, and that is braces. This is a rite of passage in the US. When you are maybe 12 or 13, a lot of kids get braces. This helps to straighten your teeth and it also helps your jaw usually so that your teeth come together in better way and you have less jaw problems when you're older, especially when you're really old. I had braces. I had braces for a long time. It's so annoying because you have to clean in each of those braces. You can't eat an apple like this because the braces might pop off. I hope for my children, if they need to have braces, I hope there's some more modern technology that has happened since I was a kid to make that process easier for them. Who knows? But it is really common in the US to get braces, so I wonder for you, have you ever had braces? Is it common in your country? I know a lot of these dental practices are cultural, so I'm very curious to hear what it's like for you. Well, congratulations on learning these 30 important dentist expressions in English. Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet because you can challenge yourself. Did you really understand and remember all of these dental expressions? When you download that free PDF worksheet, you can take the 10 question quiz. Test yourself. How well did you do? You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today. It is my gift to you to help you really remember what you're learning. Well, thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching this video next where you will hear me call the doctor's office to make an appointment. A lot of the vocabulary you learned today you will hear in that lesson used in real life. See if you can understand it. I'll see you in that lesson.