I’ll never forget the time one of my colleagues introduced a friend to me. He first told me her name, “This is my friend, Mrs. Wang.” and then preceded to tell me a little about her background. At one point though, he made a serious mistake：“My friend here, Mrs. Wang, married old.” To a Westerner, this sentence sounded like, she married an old man. His actual meaning was she got married late, which should have been expressed as “She married late (in life).”

　　我永遠都忘不了我的一位同事給我介紹一位朋友時的情景。他首先告訴我她的名字：“This is my friend, Mrs. Wang （這是我的朋友，王太太）.”然后他又告訴我她的一些情況。 但在這個時候，他犯了一個嚴重的錯誤：“My friend here, Mrs. Wang, married old.” 對于一個西方人來說， 這個句子聽起來就像是在說，她和一個老男人結婚了。而他實際上是想說她結婚晚，這個句子應該這樣表達：“She married late (in life).” 　　

　　文化背景：

　　In English it is considered rude to call someone “old”. At the same time, young people don’t like to be considered “kids” or “children” once they are in their teens, which is different from in China, where, for example, women in their twenties who are still unmarried like to be called “girls” rather than “women” as they would be in the West. 　

　　不同年齡階段的表達方式：

　　infant [ 'infənt ] n. 嬰兒，幼兒 child [ tʃaild ]n. 孩子

　　teenager [ 'ti:n.eidʒə ] n. 十幾歲的青少年 adult [ ə'dʌlt, 'ædʌlt ]n.成人，成年人

　　young adult青壯年 elderly [ 'eldəli ] adj. 過了中年的；稍老的

　　middle-aged [ 'midl'eidʒd ] adj.中年的 twilight years晚年

　　senior citizen [ 'sitizn ]老年人

　　in one’s 20’s/30’s在某人二十幾/三十幾歲的時候