Free English Class! Topic: Aging! 👵🏻👴🏾👵 (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson where I'm going

to talk about aging. So aging is the process whereby we get

old. Those are a lot of big words aren't they? Um it's the

process of getting old as you go through life. Aging is

something that I'm slowly becoming an expert on as time

goes by. When I was younger, when I was in my teens or when

I was in my twenties. I didn't know a lot about aging. But

certain now that I am fifty I am starting to become an expert

on aging which again is the process of getting older so in

this English lesson I'll teach you some words and phrases that

you could use to talk about aging the biggest question that

I got I got a few messages from people saying that I spelled

the word aging wrong that it has an E in it so I put some

flags here for you the word aging has two spellings in

English you can say aging or aging they're pronounced the

same but if you are in America and most of Canada you would

spell it without an E. It sounds to me from my research

that if you live in Britain or some Canadians still spell it

with an E. So it's not a typo on the title. Aging can be

spelled without an E in North America or with an E. So just

kind of pay attention to where you are. And again to define

aging aging is the process of getting older. As time goes by

humans get older. Other animals get older. Uh but aging is that

process. The aging process, some people say the aging

process is not kind. Um you get older, you get wiser, but

physically things get more difficult to do. We have a few

other ways to talk about this. Probably, the most common way

that we describe it is getting old. Like, yes, my mom is

getting old or I'm getting old. We sometimes say feeling old as

well. It's pretty common for me to work on the farm all day and

at the end of the day, I'm sore and I say to Jen, oh I'm

getting old or I might say, oh I'm I'm feeling old today. Um

but getting old is probably the most common one. You know, my

parents are getting old. They might need to move into a

retirement home or wow, I'm getting old. Soon, I will be

retired. Um old age is another way to describe it. So as you

approach old age we talk about old age when we talk about

ourselves as something in the future. So as someone who is

fifty I would say that I'm approaching old age. In about

ten or 15 years I might describe myself as being old.

But right now I'm approaching old age. Even though my hair is

grey even here. I still am not considered old. Uh let's see

here. Over the hill. So this used to be when you were over

the age of forty but I'm wondering now if over the hill

is actually closer to forty-five or fifty. We use the

phrase over the hill to talk about being halfway through

your life. Um usually on your fortieth birthday people will

say ah you're over the hill now. And it's a phrase kind of

describing that life is a hill. And you climb up and then when

you get to the top you're over the hill. So it really is um a

unique English phrase for referring to the halfway point

in your life. I would be considered over the hill if you

were talking to me in English. And then of course grey hair.

Now grey has two spellings as well. You can spell it GRAY or

GRE Y. In Canada both spellings are acceptable. But certainly

you can see by example. I can't even point to the right side of

my head. That my hair is getting gray. Gray hair is a

very common thing. And then uh mentioned in the chat and I

forgot to put a slide up is that people get bald. Men

suffer from baldness as they get older. I have I'm a little

worried. I'm not sure if that's a bald spot right there. You

see this little white line? It might just be hair that's a

little more grey. Um it's hard to look at it but I might be

starting to bald. I don't think. Yeah, I don't know. My

mom's dad, my grandfather on my mom's side had a full head of

hair and he lived to be in his seventies. So, I hope that

genetically I take after him. We'll have to see. So far, so

far so good. I'm not balding. Anyways, grey hair definitely a

sign of getting older. And then wrinkles. If I was to zoom the

camera way in, you would notice that I have wrinkles be side my

eyes. Um you can see a few wrinkles on my forehead. If I

try to raise my eyebrows, I'm probably freaking everyone out

but as you get older, you get more and more wrinkles. Um so,

I actually think wrinkles are kinda cool. Um I know some

people like to put cream on and they like to try to stop the

wrinkles but I figure as I age, as I get older, as I approach

old age, it's just going to be far for the is what we would

say. You're gonna get wrinkles. You can't really stop them. And

then you might lose your teeth. This is becoming less common in

many parts of the world because uh we have fluoride in our

water and we have fluoride in our toothpaste. Um like for

myself I still have all my teeth. My dad and my uncles um

most of them didn't have their teeth when they were older.

Their teeth slowly uh I guess they had them pulled uh and

then they got what's called dentures or false teeth. So not

as common still common in some places in the world as you get

older you might lose your teeth but becoming less common. And

then yes you would wear either false teeth or dentures. So my

dad had his bottom teeth but he had um he wore false teeth. His

top teeth. He had false teeth. So it was always funny because

he would a lot of times take his false teeth out and put

them in his pocket. I don't know why. And then sometimes

they would fall out of his pocket. So, anyways, just a

funny story about my dad and his false teeth. Um I've tried

to take really good care of my teeth. Um I go to the dentist

regularly. So, hopefully, I don't end up with false teeth

but if I do, I do. And then probably, the biggest thing as

you age, one of the things that happens when you are aging uh

is you have aches and pains. Sometimes, they are mysterious.

Sometimes, you're hurts or your knee hurts or your hip hurt and

you don't know why. You don't remember what you did. Maybe

you just did a quick movement. I know a year ago, I turned my

head really fast and all of a sudden, I had a pain in my

neck. Um and I don't know. I didn't really do anything to

deserve that. And then of course poor eyesight. I have my

reading glasses here. Um a number of years ago. Put these

on for a sec. A number of years ago I didn't need reading

glasses. Um I could read without glasses no problem. But

slowly but surely um my vision when trying to read things

started to fade. Like if I had to read something this small.

I'm not sure if it's gonna focus on that. It might. No it

likes my face better. Um if I had To focus on something

that's small um right now I need reading glasses to read

something like that. So poor eyesight um can happen at any

age but definitely starts to happen a bit more as you get

older. So, we have a phrase in English to age gracefully and

what this kind of refers to is that you just take aging as

something normal in life. That you don't try to fight it, you

try to stay healthy, you eat healthy, and you exercise but

that you just, you're okay with all of the things that happen

as you get older. I'm trying to age gracefully. I'm looking

forward to eating healthy and exercising but if at a certain

point in my life, um I'm not able To do certain things, I

hope that I can accept them. Hopefully, you understood that

phrase to age gracefully. And then of course, there's

retirement. So, uh there are some things that are actually

cool about aging. There are some things that are cool about

getting older and one of those is that eventually, you don't

need to work anymore. It depends on how well you've

planned for retirement. It might depend on whether your

children as they get older are going to take care of you um

but retirement is certainly something a lot of older people

I work with look forward to retirement they are excited

about retirement some of them can't wait to retire in 2 years

or 3 years or 5 years um when am I going to retire I don't

know I think I like working too much I think I might um go all

the way to sixty-five maybe even a year or two I will most

likely though work a bit less I might semi retire when you semi

retire, it means that you work half time or you work part

time. There are a lot of teachers that do this. Instead

of teaching full time, they semi retire and then they just

teach one or two classes each semester. That might be an

interesting solution for me. Free time. So, one thing that

Jen and I don't have a lot of right now is free time. Jen and

I have five children. Uh we both work. Jen runs the flower

farm. I'm a teacher and I do YouTube. Um we do that we need

to provide for our family. It's important when you're a parent

to work so that you have money to buy food and to have a house

and those kinds of things. But Jen and I are both looking

forward to already in about 10 years we'll have a little more

free time. For sure in about 15 years when I'm sixty-five um we

will have a bit more free time. So that is one of the positive

and cool things about aging. You also hopefully will have a

pension Now this depends on what country you live in. It

depends on what job you had. Teachers actually have a fairly

nice pension plan. It's not amazing. But when I'm paid at

work a small amount of my paycheck automatically goes

into a pension plan. And when I retire I will gets a certain

amount of money every month from my pension plan. So

another bonus or benefit of aging is that eventually you

retire and you have a pension. There are a lot of names for

the place where you can live when you're older. We call them

old age homes or retirement homes and there's kind of two

types of homes you can move into. What I mean by old age

home or retirement home is a place you move into when you're

old and you usually have a small apartment and you live in

the same building as many other older people, okay? Generally,

an old age home or retirement home um is a you move to when

you're still healthy or relatively healthy but if you

are old and you need care, you will probably move into a

nursing home or a care home. Again, I'm not sure what it's

like in the rest of the world. In Canada, we have many, many

names for these places. We call it the old age home, the

retirement home, the nursing home, the care home. We also

call it the old folks home or we call it a home. So, you

might hear um people my age. So, in a few years, um my

brothers and sisters and I will probably start to talk about

whether um we should talk to my mom about moving into a home.

Which doesn't mean a house. When you talk about an old

person and you talk about whether they should move into a

home, you're talking about an old age home, retirement home,

nursing home, care home, or old folks home. Um my has her own

house but at some point in the future because she's aging just

like the rest of us, she will probably start to think about

moving into an old folks home. Some of her friends already

live in a retirement home. So, we'll see. And when I said

there's a lot of names, there's a lot of different names. We

call it a retirement village. Uh we call it an old age

village, an old age home, a care home. Um there it's uh it

seems to me like there's six or seven names for them. Um but

anyway, Sounds like they're fun places to live especially when

you're able to play cards with other people and do some of

your hobbies and enjoy the company. Probably a lot more

challenging if you are in a nursing home or care home and

need regular care. So, again, a nursing home or care home will

probably have nurses there every day. They'll probably

have a doctor that comes every day and it's for people who

just physically need help. Cuz now we're flipping to some of

the negatives. As you get older, you become less agile.

When you're agile, it means you can move quickly. Like someone

who's agile, if if I dropped, let's say my glasses, they fell

and I caught them. I would be able to catch them because I'm

agile. I can still move quickly and do things but as you get

older, um you become less agile. Um I've already started

to experience this a little bit. I need to stretch a lot

more after I exercise. You become less attentive. So,

physically, it your body changes as you age. The aging

process, your body just gets older but your mind as well can

start to deteriorate a little bit and you might have trouble

paying attention to the things that are happening around you.

We also have a phrase in English to be with it or to be

less with it. Sometimes, as people get older and this is

kind of sad, they have trouble thinking and doing the things

they normally do and we might say they're less with it. Um

when you're less with it, maybe you can't remember um where you

put your car keys all the time. Maybe you're always losing

things. We would say that you're just not that with it or

you're less with it. That's something I do not look forward

to as I age. I do not want to become less attentive or less

with it. That scares me a lot. And then I used this phrase

earlier. Um I wanna be young at heart all the time. So you can

see these uh two people are on swings. Something that normally

children would go on. But this couple is obviously young at

heart. They're an older couple. You can tell by the gray hair

and uh you can tell that they've gone for a walk,

they're probably at the playground, and they decided to

uh sit on the swings and swing back and forth. So, they're

doing something that children normally do. So, I would say

they are young at heart. And then when people live a really

long time, we describe it as that they lived to a ripe old

age. Um a few uh about half a year ago, someone that I knew

who was in their 90s passed away and you would say they

lived to the ripe old age of ninety-two or they lived to a

ripe old age. So, it's kind of funny cuz you use ripe to

describe fruit, right? When fruit grows, eventually, it's

ripe and you can pick it but we also use this phrase to talk

about people who live a very long time. Like, oh, he lived

uh he lived to the ripe old age of ninety-seven or um he lived

to a ripe old age. He was 102 when he passed away. That's how

old I wanna be. 100 two. I don't think that's gonna

happen. Um we have a few different words for describing

people who are old. We might say that they are a senior. We

might say that they are a senior citizen. Um basically,

the word senior in English means anyone who is over sixty,

sixty-five, we would call a senior. As soon as you're close

to retirement age, we would say that you're a senior and I

think you get some discounts. There's some restaurants where

seniors 5% off on Tuesday mornings there's some stores

where you get a senior discount where if you're sixty-five or

older uh you get a discount so being a senior has it's perks

as well and then senior citizen I think is just a longer way of

saying senior you know you can have there's a lot of senior

citizens that voted in our election this week because

seniors really like to vote which is good I wish everyone

voted more and then we have the phrase elderly for me the word

elderly refers to someone who is like in their lateties or

80s or nineties. When I think of an elderly person, I think

of someone who's really, really old. When I think of someone in

their 60s or seventies, they seem, I would just say they're

seniors or senior citizens and don't quote me on this. This is

just my uh definition but definitely when I think of

someone who is elderly, I think of someone who has trouble

walking, maybe has trouble like even doing buttons on their

shirt. Uh that's what I think of when I think of someone who

is elderly. You'll notice I've been talking about positive

things and negative things about the aging process. When

you get older, one of the negative things is you might

experience loneliness. If you are married and have children,

it still doesn't guarantee that you'll, that you won't be

lonely when you're older. Sometimes, your spouse gets

sick and passes away. Sometimes, kids don't talk to

their older parents and sometimes, older people end up

living and not seeing people very often. I personally think

it's very important to visit older people all the time and I

say that because when I'm old, I want people to visit me. I do

not want to experience loneliness when I am older. I

think it's important for old people, uh anyone actually to

have hobbies. You can see this couple, it looks like they've

started to learn to dance. I would hope that when I older, I

can do something like that as well. Learn new things, learn

new hobbies, learn uh new games to play with the people that

are around me. And I think it's important to stay active. In

English, we often use the phrase, uh you need to keep

busy or you need to stay active. When you say keep busy,

it means that you have things to do. It means that you find

things to fill your day. My mom volunteers. I'll talk about

volunteering later. She doesn't have a job anymore but she does

go and she works in a thrift store um and my mom tries to

stay active. She tries to walk every day and those kinds of

things. So, I think staying active and keeping busy. When

you stay active, it's good for your body. When you keep busy,

it's good for your brain. As I mentioned, a lot of younger

older people, see, I hope that made sense to you. People who

retire at age sixty or sixty-five will often

immediately start to travel if they have enough money to do

that because when you're sixty-five, you're usually

physically able to um go on airplanes and walk around large

cities. It's fun to be a tourist when you are retired

and when you're still healthy enough to do those kinds of

things. So, a lot of people who retire will immediately travel

before they get so old that it becomes difficult for them. So,

definitely a common activity. Another thing that happens as

you age, one of, one of the things about the aging process

or aging is that you end up taking more and more

medication. So, you might be taking medication for high

blood pressure. You might be taking medication because you

had heart surgery in the past. You might be taking medication

so that you don't have to have heart surgery. Um you might be

taking medication to bring your cholesterol down. Uh so, those

of you that work in the medical field are aware that as people

get older, they definitely start to take more medications.

So, medicine, pills, drugs, medication, there's a lot of

words for it in English. You might need to use a cane. You

might need to use a cane because one of your hips

doesn't work very well anymore or maybe one of your knees

doesn't work well or you're just Having trouble keeping

your balance um and you might need a cane when you walk. Um

this is something that I used a long time ago when I was a kid.

I actually sprained my ankle really badly. And I had to use

a cane for four weeks. It was interesting. I felt like I was

old even though I was quite young. You might need a

caregiver. So if your health problems are really serious You

might need a nurse or someone who is called a caregiver to

come and visit you in your home every day. Maybe you are on

certain medications that they have to give you with a needle.

Maybe you just need help getting dressed or going to the

washroom. You might have a caregiver that either lives in

your home or comes and visits you. This is not super common.

It's usually for people who have really serious illnesses

when they're older. Um but you might have that we would call a

caregiver. You might sorry I really like this guy I like

this picture you might have to take a regular driving test I

believe in Ontario Canada when you are 80 years old if you

want to keep your driving your driver's license you have to go

for a test every 2 years I I'll double check that later but I'm

pretty sure that's the law in many provinces in Canada so if

you're eighty and you're still driving every 2 years you have

to go for a vision test and you might have to actually go for

an in-car test. You might have the structure sit beside you uh

and you might have to go for an in-car test but certainly, as

you get older, regular driving tests are important. You might

go to the doctor for a regular checkup. Uh this is something

most people start doing at age fifty or fifty-five. Instead of

waiting until you feel sick. You usually go to the doctor

once every year or every 2 years for a regular checkup. Um

I don't go for a regular checkup to my normal doctor. I

go to a heart doctor for a regular checkup every year. But

certainly um one of the things that happens as you age um one

of the things that's common for all people who are aging is

that you need to go to the doctor more often. You might

need things like hip replacements or knee

replacements. I put these two on here in particular because

most of the older people I know well not most a lot of older

people I know at some point get a hip replacement so they get

their hip replaced with a metal ball and pin or they get a knee

replacement. I think these are the two most common Surgeries

that I've heard of. I know some people have shoulder surgery

but generally, I'll hear things like, oh, did you hear Aunt

Julie had hip replacement surgery or uncle John had knee

replacement surgery? Very, very common in North America and I

would imagine in other parts of the world as well. So, hip

replacement and knee replacement and then, heart

surgery is quite common. I had heart surgery not because I was

old. I had heart surgery because I had a valve in my

heart that wasn't working properly but it is fairly

common in North America um for people when they get older to

have heart problems. They might have heart disease and at some

point they might need heart surgery. And then back to a

more positive aspect as I mentioned older people

sometimes volunteer. They retire but they want to keep

They want to do something so that they can get out of the

house. That's another common English phrase. My mom likes to

keep busy. She volunteers because she likes to get out of

the house. And so she volunteers at a thrift store. A

thrift store is a place where people donate old clothing and

books and household items. And then the thrift store cleans

them up and sells them and then the money is usually used for a

charity or a good cause. Like the money goes towards

researching cancer or heart disease and those kinds of

things. So, a lot of older people will volunteer and then,

of course, it's nice to spend time with family. A lot of uh

people as they are aging, they realize that family is very

important to them and so, as they eventually semi retire or

retire, they try to spend more time with family especially if

they have grandkids. It's very common in all places in the

world for grandparents to spend time with grandkids. It's a lot

of fun. I think um for grandparents to take care of

grandkids and then um they're not totally in charge of them.

You can give them back to your parents at the end of the day.

Uh to their parents and you don't have to worry about them

anymore. So spending time with family is a very very common

thing for people to do as they get older.