[Columbine]

Originally Posted by yumyumtimtam

wow, thank you Columbine san
I understand now! clearly! thank you!
(oops I maybe used too many exclamation marks again, sorry robhol san!)

One of my teacher friends told me
that some people in Canada say "Where is your shoes?" instead of " Where ARE your shoes?" or "Where is your pair of shoes?"
but is he right?

I have no idea. *laughs* Koirrrrr~ we need your input. You do hear people in the UK say "Where's your shoes" or "Where's my keys", quite often. And of course, if you were to correct the apostrophe, it would read "Where is your shoes" and "where is my keys", but we never say it like that. It's always "Where are XXX" or "Where's XXX".

Originally Posted by yumyumtimtam

I see. 日本語のほうがシンプルかな。以上と以下や未満という 漢字が使えます。


maybe there is a line there? as soon as you touch the line of 18, you are over 18? even 18 years and 1 second old?
mmm, yes it's tricky!

mmm? so more than 2 could be 2.0001 right?

Hmm, it's difficult because ages are treated slightly differently than numbers in English. Mostly when we say "more than 2" we're dealing with whole numbers. "More than 2 people," "more than 2 apples" "more than 2 cars". And you can't have 2.0001 apples or 2.0001 people, because you can only count them in wholes. 2.0001 people would be like 2 people and a finger, but you can't call a finger a person. The same with apples. 2.0001 apples might be 2 whole apples plus a fragment more apple, but again, you can't call just a fragment of apple "An apple". So we'd use something like weight to express what 2 and a bit apples is instead, for example, 100g of apple.

But ages are more like times. You can say "over 2.0001 seconds" and it still makes sense because seconds can also be counted in milliseconds. Basically
1 hour = 60 minutes = 3600 seconds but there's no valid way of counting people or objects based on the parts they are made up of.

Particularly with the age 18, once you turn 18, your papers (driving license, passport etc) become valid ID to enter bars and pubs, so definitely the date of your birthday is like a line.

Originally Posted by yumyumtimtam

Yes, I understand!
but one thing, can you teach me?
this "18's" means "18 yearS" old ?

ある特定の20代の男性/（一般的に）40代前半の女性/50代後半の男女　
How can I expalin them?
man in his 20's/women in their early 40's/men and women in their late 50's

Yes, 18's means 18 years old. It also has the nuance of 'more than one 18 year old person'.

Your explanation sounds perfect to me.

Originally Posted by yumyumtimtam

An Aussie lady told me once
"don't say HOW OLD ARE YOU? when you want to ask someone's age, say HOW YOUNG ARE YOU?" I know she was joking, but is it actually good to use when I "need" to ask someone elder about her age?

and is this OK?
"I went to Hawaii for a skydiving" 30 years old teacher said to his student in the 1st grade of elementary school.
"I like it too" the student said.
"Have you done that before?"the teacher said.
"yep, when I was a kid"
"You ARE a kid." then... this teacher could say
" How young were you then?" ?

I wouldn't use "how young are you" to an older person, unless I knew their personality, but then I'm just a kid still really and that sort of joking from people my age can come across as cheeky; like I'm highlighting their age and making fun of it. However, I think from you, it would be much more acceptable.

*laughs* I think your skydiving scenario is OK. A lot of people might still ask "How old were you then?" but for the situation "how young were you" would fit; because the stress of the conversation is that the kid was exceptionally young to be going skydiving!