THINK and SPEAK in English

How old am I? Shh? I'll never tell. A lady never  tells her age. Just kidding. Today, you are going  

to learn how to think and speak in English  about age and getting older. Hi. I'm Vanessa  

from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. And like always  I have created a free PDF worksheet with all of  

today's important vocabulary definitions, sample  sentences, and at the bottom of the worksheet,  

you can answer Vanessa's challenge question  so that you never forget what you've learned.  

You can click on the link in the description to  download that free PDF worksheet today. It is my  

gift to you. Today, I'm going to tell you a little  story about growing older that happened to me,  

and I'm going to be helping you with some  of the key vocabulary in the story so that  

you can use that too when you're speaking  in English. Are you ready to get started?

Let's start with the story. Recently, I went  to the grocery store to buy some wine and the  

16-year-old cashier asked to check my ID.  Okay, so I don't know if this 16-year-old  

cashier was actually 16 years old, but  I wanted to introduce you to this useful  

way of describing age. Do you notice something  about this expression? There are two hyphens,  

16 hyphen, year hyphen, old cashier. This is  an adjective describing cashier. So we could  

say my four-year-old son loves snakes. It's  true, he loves all kinds of snakes. And here  

I'm using it as an adjective to describe what?  To describe son, my son, my four-year-old son,  

the 16-year-old cashier. Now, there's another  way to talk about age, which you'll see in an  

upcoming sentence, so keep this in mind and  let's go on to the next part of the story.

In the US you'll get carded if you look younger  than 50 years old, they're pretty strict about  

underage drinking. Do you know this lovely phrase  to get carded? It doesn't mean that they're giving  

me a greeting card, "Happy birthday, Vanessa."  No. Instead, it just means that the cashier is  

checking my ID to make sure that I'm old enough  to buy something. Usually it's tobacco or alcohol,  

so if you look under the age of 50, you will get  carded most likely. They'll say, "Can I see your  

ID?" Or, "Do you have an ID?" Sometimes they'll  say, "What year were you born in?" If they're  

pretty sure that you're over the age of 21,  which is the legal drinking age in the US,  

but usually you'll get carded. And sometimes,  I know I have some older neighbors, they're  

55 years old, when they go to buy alcohol  and they get carded, they get so excited.

"You think that I'm under 21 years old? Yes, I  will show you my ID, no problem." And this is a  

big part of American culture that they are strict  about underage drinking. That doesn't mean that  

people underage don't drink. They definitely do.  But this is just the legal system. Remember how we  

just talked about 16-year-old cashier? Take a look  at the phrase I just used, 50 years old. What's  

the difference between these two, 16-year-old  cashier, and 50 years old? It's the S, and there's  

a hyphens in the first one. So here, take a look  at how we're going to grammatically use the second  

one, he is 50 years old. I am 500 years old.  Amazing. So here we are going to be using the S  

when we are simply stating an age. He is 50 years  old, but we could say he is a 50-year-old man.

Notice how we added man to the end, and we need  those hyphens when we're adding the noun at the  

end. Lots of ways to talk about age. Okay, let's  continue with the story and see what happened at  

the grocery store. Well, the girl looked at  my ID and said, "Oh, my mom was born in 1987,  

too." What? I have never felt so old. I know that  36 years old is not old, but it made me feel old.  

Let's talk about this phrase to feel old. I know  that 36 years old is not really old, but it made  

me feel old. So here we have a discrepancy between  my true age and how I feel. I think this has  

happened to everyone at some point. Maybe you're  watching a professional sport and you realize,  

"Oh, everyone playing that professional  sport is younger than me." What? There  

becomes a turning point when you are becoming  wiser, more mature and older along the way.

So you might say, "I remember when my cousins  were born and now they're graduating from high  

school. It makes me feel so old." All right,  let's continue with the story. Yes, I felt old,  

but I know that age is just a number. It's  all about your mindset and your creaky knees,  

right? This phrase might exist in your native  language as well, age is just a number. Maybe if  

you are 75 years old, you might feel extremely  old or you might feel young and vibrant,  

excited about the world, curious and interested.  Well, it's just a mindset usually. So we could  

say age is just a number. All right, let's  continue. For me, I hope that as I age,  

despite what my body does, I'll continue to  be young at heart. Did you notice that I used  

this word differently than usual? I said,  "I hope that as I age," I used it as a verb.

Usually the word age is a noun, right? What is  your age? But here we're talking about to age,  

which means simply to get older. So  you might say something like this,  

"Everyone ages. It's just a part of  life." Isn't that true? Everyone ages,  

a lovely verb. The next phrase about age  I'd like to introduce you to is this one,  

to be young at heart. I know that as we age and  as we get older, life happens. There are difficult  

and heavy things that happen to us. So how can we  stay young at heart? Take a look at this sentence.  

In my opinion, being around young children helps  you to stay young at heart. You enjoy playing.  

You can laugh at the silly things that they  do. It keeps you young at heart. All right,  

let's continue with the story. I hope I'll  always be curious and interested in the world.

It's never too late to learn something new like  English. I love this phrase. It's never too late.  

We can use this about growing older, about aging.  It's never too late to learn English. I know a  

lot of my students are retired. Now you all of a  sudden have this free time and you want to invest  

it in yourself, being curious and interested in  the world, improving yourself, keeping your mind  

active. It's never too late to learn English. But  we can also use this phrase for a lot of other  

things as well. My family loves to plant things,  including trees. Well, trees take a long time to  

grow and yes, I wish I had planted trees 10 years  ago, but I could use this phrase, it's never too  

late to plant a tree. Start today and in 50 years  it will be a big mature tree. It's never too late.

All right, let's continue. Here's my advice as  your English teacher, don't listen to all those  

negative people who say that you can't teach an  old dog new tricks. Does this phrase exist in  

your native language? Unfortunately, this is  quite a negative phrase that's usually meant  

to discourage people. Or if you feel like you're  not learning something fast enough, you might use  

this and say, "I got my first cell phone last  week and I just can't figure it out. I guess  

you can't teach an old dog new tricks," but the  truth is you can keep your mind open. Your style  

of learning might be slightly different.  Your results might be slightly different,  

but you know what? It is worth it to keep  your mind active and always learning new  

things that interest you. All right, let's  continue. A lot of my older and wiser  

students tell me that they are learning  English in order to keep their mind young.

What a great idea. I love it. This phrase, to  keep your mind young means that even though  

your body is getting older, maybe your body is not  capable of the same agile, fast, difficult things  

that you used to do when you were younger, your  mind can stay young and active. There are a lot  

of ways that you can do this. The number one way  is to speak English with Vanessa, of course. But  

the other ways that you can keep your mind young  are doing puzzles, trying to figure out different  

problems that you can solve. Try a new kind of  art, try some painting, maybe make something with  

clay. These types of things can help to keep  your mind young and fresh. I want to share a  

quote with you about age and growing older by  George Bernard Shaw, the author. It's this,  

"We don't stop playing because we grow older.  We grow older because we stop playing."

Of course, you can't stop the aging of your body,  but here he's talking about the aging of the  

mind. If you continue playing, enjoying things,  finding the joy in the little moments of life,  

your mind will stay young. Wonderful idea.  Well, congratulations on keeping your mind  

young with me and being young at heart. Don't  worry, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  

It's never too late to learn something new.  Well, don't forget to download the free PDF  

worksheet with all of today's story, important  vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences. You  

can review this so that you never forget what  you've learned. Whether you are 22 years old,  

52 years old, or 82 years old, this PDF worksheet  is for you. You can click on the link in the  

description to download that worksheet  today. And now I have a question for you.

If you feel comfortable, let me know in the  comments, how old are you? Tell me your age  

and I can't wait to see what kind of a wonderful  span of ages we have, learning English and keeping  

your mind young here on YouTube. So 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 continue  

to learn how to think and speak in English  about technology, including a problem that  

I used to have and how I decided to solve  it. I'll see you in that video to find out.