Speaking English - Talking about your age

Hello. My name is Hannah. Welcome to EngVid. Today, we are going to learn about age. How

old are you?

Hand, what are you doing? Get out of the way. Hi. I don't know how that Hannah the Hand

came in there. That was very strange indeed. I hope she doesn't come back again.

Today, we're going to learn to talk about age. How old are you? How old am I? To start

off, it's kind of a little bit of a rude question. You do not want to just go up to people, especially

ladies, and say, "Hello, lady. How old are you?" Ladies don't like to tell people their

age. It is an eternal Mr. E. But if it's your friend or someone that you feel comfortable

with and they feel comfortable with you, you can ask them. It's cool. I don't mind. Myself,

I don't care. But some people do, so be careful.

So question. How old are you? These two are wrong. Do not say, "I have 23." You have 23

what? You have 23 monkeys? You have 23 armpits? Armpits? No. You do not want to say, "My international

age is 23, but in Korea, in my Korean age, I'm 21." How old are you? Please be direct

and tell me exactly how old you are. Korea is the only country in the world where you

have two different ages. It's very confusing to every other person in the world, so it's

exclusively for Korea. So when you tell people, tell them your international age, but don't

tell them, "My international age is" -- what you want to say is, "I am." That's all. "I

am 23." I'm not 23, but as an example, you do not need to say, "years old." This is optional.

I can say, "I am 23 years old." I don't need to say that. I can just say, "I am 23." You

cannot say, "I am 23 years." You cannot say, "I am 23 old." You cannot say, "I am 23 monkeys."

That's odd. So all you need to say is, "I am 23," or whatever your age is. If you don't

want to tell the person exactly how old you are, you can be very general about your age.

For example, you can say, "I am" -- we always use "I am," not "I have" -- "in my early,

mid, or late." So "early" would be from 0 to 3, about. "Mid" would be from 3 to 6 or

7. And "late" would be from 7 to the next generation. So you can say, "I'm in my early

teens," which would put you at 13, 14, 15. Your "mid teens," I'm sorry, would be 15,

16, 17. And your "late teens" would be 18, 19. Then we start "early 20s," "mid 20s,"

"late 20s." So whatever age you are, you can generalize with people. You can say, "I'm

in my mid 30s." And you don't actually have to tell them how old you are. You can even

tell them you're in your 30s. You don't even have to use "early, mid, or late." It's

more of a secret. If you are past your 40s -- "I'm not yet" -- or past your 50s or

past your 60s, it's a good thing to say, "I am in my 40s, in my 50s, or in my 60s."

Okay, so now we have different categories of talking about age. So the first one is

a "baby." Now, in most countries, when we talk about the baby, we start counting when

the baby comes out. So you can start counting and say, "Your baby is one day, two days,

three days, two weeks, two months, etc." I know when I lived in Japan, I would ask a

mother, "How old is your baby?" And they would say, "Zero." Oh, okay. That confused me. So

what we do is we count by days, weeks, and months. So it's normal for someone to say,

"My baby is three months old." Three months old. We can also say how many weeks old the

baby is. Maybe you just had the baby, and the baby is one week old. Once it gets past

12 months, some people continue and say, "13 months, 14 months, 15 months, 16 months, 17

months." It seems to be a cutoff of a year and a half. People go up to 18 months, and

then they say, "One and a half." I don't know why. So "baby" ranges of age from zero, one

day, to a "toddler." A "toddler" basically is when the baby is able to stand up and walk

around like a baby. This is a fun time. So "toddler" probably starts from two years -- this

is the short form of the word "years" -- to when they become a child. I'm not exactly

sure when the cutoff is. There's no rule when the cutoff is, but we're going to say it's

two years till four. Maybe around four or five, the children will go to kindergarten.

So they've developed, they can walk, they can eat, they can go to the toilet by themselves

maybe. They don't wear diapers. I would guess that once the child is done using diapers,

it would become a child. So from "toddler" to "child" would be four till about 12. A

curious thing happens when you become 12. The next month, you become 13, 14, 15, 16,

17, 18, 19. These are called your "teens." It starts when you are 13 because just of

the numbers. Twelve does not have a "teen" in it, so we've got 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,

19, 20. At age 20, you are no longer a "teen." Most people would consider you an "adult,"

which depends on your maturity level, I'd imagine. After you hit your teens, you become

an "adult." After you become about 45 or 50 in your late 40s, early 50s, we have an expression

-- an idiom that's called "over the hill." You will see a lot of merchandise in party

stores that have "over the hill." It's usually black and white. Very creepy. This means usually

the person is 40 or 50 and their life is over. I'm joking. It just means that they're becoming

older, and it's a celebration of being old. Once you become over the hill, I guess you

start going downhill, and you become probably in your 60s, sometimes 60, sometimes 65. You

become a "senior." Yes. Or another word for "senior" is "elderly." So "senior/elderly"

starts at age 60 or 65, depending on who's saying what. The cool thing about being a

"senior" or an "elderly" person is discounts. You can get so many discounts on lots of things.

You can get discounts for art galleries. I know that in Glasgow, Scotland, elderly people

can ride the bus for free anywhere they want to go. Lots of stores will offer a 10 or 20%

discount to seniors. Once again, the age varies from 60 to 65. Usually over 65, you're in

it for the 20% discount. Always check and just say, "I'm a senior. Can I have a discount?"

You never know what might happen. After you become a "senior" and you have all of your

discounts, there's a thing that approaches called "death." And we have an expression

for that. It's called "one foot in the grave." Now, a "grave" is the place where they bury

dead people. You might see something like this. This is a grave, and many of them together

are called a "graveyard." So you can go to the graveyard or cemetery, and that's where

all the dead bodies are. "One foot in the grave" basically means the person is near

death. They are so old that their one foot's in the grave, and they're going to fall into

it and die. Okay, so I hope that you have learned how to talk about age. Please always

use the verb "to be." "I am." If you're talking about another person, you can say "he" or

"she is," and "they" and "we are." Don't forget to conjugate your "to be" verb, and have a

wonderful life.