French language Q&A Forum

Why is it "Je me brosse LES dents" instead of "MES dents"?  If they are MY teeth, why not "mes dents"?  Or, if maybe I have a child I'm teaching good dental hygiene, "Je te brosse tes dents."

 I am trying to find some more examples about the difference between l'an/l'année and I am now confused. For example, I want to find out whether to use l'an/l'année in "I got pregnant the same year I got married." in French. Google Translates says "Je suis tombée enceinte la même année de mon mariage." and another translation software called DeepL says "Je suis tombée enceinte l'année de mon mariage."

Are these sentences correct? If so, why do we use année instead of an? Because I am very convinced an/année indicates a particular point of time here. Thanks for answering.

Nous avons été très surpris en apprenant la nouvelle.

We were really surprised when we heard the news.

I would have used nous étions instead of nous avons été. Is that not correct?

In English nous avons été très surpris translates to - We have been very surprised which implies the surprise happened and is still ongoing or at least has a prolonged duration, whereas nous étions translates to - We were, which implies it happened but is no longer ongoing. The latter seems to be the correct answer to this question especially since being surprised is usually a point in time thing.