| 词组 | age |
| 释义 | age ◊ asking about age When you want to ask about the age of a person or thing, you use How old and the verb 'be'. 'How old are you?' ---'Thirteen.' 'How old is he?' ---'About sixty-five.' 'How old's your house?' ---'I think it was built about 1950.' ◊ indicating someone's age There are several ways in which you can say how old someone or something is. You can be exact, or you can be less precise and indicate their approximate age. ◊ exact age When you want to say how old someone is, you use the verb 'be' followed by a number. I was nineteen, and he was twenty-one. I'm only 63. You can put 'years old' after the number if you want to be more emphatic. She is twenty-five years old. I am forty years old. You can also put 'years of age' after the number, but this is more formal and is more usual in written English. He is 28 years of age. ◊ WARNING You never use 'have' to talk about age. For example, you do not say 'He has thirteen years'. You say 'He is thirteen' or 'He is thirteen years old'. When you are mentioning someone, you can indicate their exact age using 'of' or 'aged' after the noun which refers to them, followed by a number. ...a man of thirty. ...two little boys aged nine and eleven. You can also mention someone's age using a compound adjective in front of a noun. For example, you can refer to a 'five-year-old' boy. Note that the noun referring to the period of time, such as 'year', is always singular, even though it comes after a number. The compound adjective is usually hyphenated. ...a twenty-two-year-old student. ...a five-month-old baby. You can also refer to someone using a compound noun such as 'ten-year-old'. All the six-year-olds are taught by one teacher. ...Melvin Kalkhoven, a tall, thin thirty-five-year-old. ◊ approximate age If you are not sure exactly how old someone is, or you do not want to state their exact age, you can use the verb 'be' followed by 'about', 'almost', 'nearly', 'over', or 'under', and a number. I think he's about 60. He must be nearly thirty. She was only a little over forty years old. There weren't enough people who were under 25. You can also use 'above the age of' or 'below the age of' followed by a number. This is more formal. 55 percent of them were below the age of twenty-one. You can indicate that someone's age is between 20 and 29 by saying 'He's in his twenties' or 'She's in her twenties'. You can use 'thirties', 'forties', and so on in the same way. Young people aged 13 to 19 are said to be 'in their teens'. Note that you use 'in' and a possessive determiner in these structures. He was in his sixties. I didn't mature till I was in my forties. ...when I was in my teens. You can use 'early', 'mid-', 'middle', or 'late' to indicate approximately where someone's age comes in a particular ten-year period (or eight-year period in the case of 'teens'). Jane is only in her early forties. She was in her mid-twenties. He was then in his late seventies. You can put most of the above structures after a noun such as 'man' or 'woman' to indicate someone's approximate age. ...help for ladies over 65. She had four children under the age of five. ...a woman in her early thirties. You cannot, however, use 'about', 'almost', or 'nearly' immediately after a noun. For example, you cannot say 'a man about 60'. You say 'a man of about 60'. You can refer to a group of people whose age is more or less than a particular number using a compound noun which consists of 'over' or 'under' followed by the plural form of the number. The over-sixties do not want to be turned out of their homes. Schooling for the under-fives should be expanded. ◊ similar ages If you want to indicate that someone's age is similar to someone else's, you can use the verb 'be' followed by expressions such as 'my age', 'his own age', and 'her parents' age'. I wasn't allowed to do that when I was her age. I'm thinking now of senior management who might be your or my age. He guessed the policeman was about his own age. To indicate the age of a person you are mentioning, you can use these expressions after the noun which refers to the person, or after the noun and 'of'. I just happen to know a bit more literature than most girls my age. It's easy to make friends because you're with people of your own age. ◊ age when something happens There are several ways of indicating how old someone was when something happened. You can use a clause beginning with 'when'. I left school when I was thirteen. Even when I was a child I was frightened of her. You can use 'at the age of' or 'at', followed by a number showing the person's age. She had finished college at the age of 20. All they want to do is leave school at sixteen and get a job. 'Aged' followed by a number is also used, mainly in writing, especially when talking about someone's death. Her husband died three days ago, aged only forty-five. A structure with an ordinal is sometimes used in writing, especially to emphasize that someone did something when they were old. For example, instead of saying that someone did something 'at the age of 79', you can say that they did it 'in their eightieth year'. He died in 1951, in his eighty-ninth year. 'As' is used with a noun group such as 'a girl' or 'a young man' to indicate that someone did something when they were young. This structure occurs mainly in writing. She suffered from bronchitis as a child. As teenagers we used to stroll round London during lunchtime. If you want to indicate that someone does something before they reach a particular age, you can say that they do it, for example, 'before the age of four' or 'by the age of four'. He maintained that children are not ready to read before the age of six. It set out the things he wanted to achieve by the age of 31. If you want to indicate that someone does something after they reach a particular age, you can say that they do it, for example, 'after the age of four'. One trouble is that the first baby in some families gets more fussing over than is good for him, especially after the age of 6 months. ◊ indicating the age of a thing If you want to say how old something is, you use the verb 'be' followed by a number, followed by 'years old'. It's at least a thousand million years old. The house was about thirty years old. Note that you cannot just use 'be' and a number, as you can when stating the age of a person. You cannot say, for example, 'The house was about thirty'. The usual way of indicating the age of something you are mentioning is to use a compound adjective in front of the noun referring to it. For example, you can refer to a 'thirty-year-old' house. As with compound adjectives indicating the age of a person, the noun 'year' is always singular and the adjective is usually hyphenated. ...Mr Watt's rattling, ten-year-old car. ...a violation of a six-year-old agreement. You can also use a number, especially a large number, and 'years old' after a noun referring to a thing. ...rocks 200 million years old. You can indicate the approximate age of something by using an adjective indicating the period in history in which it existed or was made. ...a splendid Victorian building. ...a medieval castle. You can indicate the century when something existed or was made by using a modifier consisting of an ordinal number and 'century'. ...a sixth-century church. ...life in fifth-century Athens. |
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