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).”

　　我永远都忘不了我的一位同事给我介绍一位朋友时的情景。他首先告诉我她的名字：“This is my friend, Mrs. Wang （这是我的朋友，王太太）.”然后他又告诉我她的一些情况。 但在这个时候，他犯了一个严重的错误：“My friend here, Mrs. Wang, married old.” 对于一个西方人来说， 这个句子听起来就像是在说，她和一个老男人结婚了。而他实际上是想说她结婚晚，这个句子应该这样表达：“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. 　

　　不同年龄阶段的表达方式：

　　infant [ 'infənt ] n. 婴儿，幼儿 child [ tʃaild ]n. 孩子

　　teenager [ 'ti:n.eidʒə ] n. 十几岁的青少年 adult [ ə'dʌlt, 'ædʌlt ]n.成人，成年人

　　young adult青壮年 elderly [ 'eldəli ] adj. 过了中年的；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在某人二十几/三十几岁的时候