 Welcome to this video. Today, you're going to learn the difference between elder and older. This is a question that a student had submitted and it's a great question, so I'm happy to explain this to you. Of course, I'm Jennifer from jforisenglish.com and this channel is dedicated to helping you feel confident speaking English in public so you can take your career and your life to the next level. Now, before we get started, make sure you subscribe and hit that bell icon so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. Now, let's dive in with this video. Let's talk about the difference between elder and older. Both of these are used to talk about advanced age when making a comparison. So in order to make that comparison, we need two people. One needs to be younger and one needs to be older, older. So let's take Don and Ed and let's say that Don is 15 and Ed is 18. So of course, Don is younger and Ed is older. Now let's say Don and Ed are brothers. So Don, Don speaking and Don could say, Ed is my older brother. My older brother. Using older to make that comparison between the ages and is to describe what type of brother he is. Now, Don could also say Ed is my elder brother. Technically, technically Don can say this, but if Don is a native English speaker in North America, Don is not going to say that because although according to a dictionary and a grammar rule, you can use elder to replace older in a comparison between two people to talk about their age, we don't do that. Okay. To me, it sounds awkward. It sounds unnatural and it's not something I hear. So my recommendation to you is to use older. Even though elder is grammatically correct, I still want you to use older because it will help you sound more natural. Now we can also make a general statement and say, Ed is older than Don. So notice here, I'm using older than. That's a comparative adjective. Olders are adjective. Then we have our comparative adjective. Ed is older than Don. Now in this case, I cannot say grammatically, I cannot say Ed is elder than Don. We don't use elder then. It doesn't exist as a comparative adjective and that's according to grammar as well. So you might be wondering if I'm telling you, don't use elder when you're talking about ages between two people. When can you use elder? Should you ever use it? Well, there is one specific case that we commonly use it in North America and that's using elder as a noun, a noun. Okay. Not an adjective as a noun and elder and elder would be one and elders would be a group. They are senior citizens, senior citizens and using the name elder sounds respectful. It sounds like a nice thing to say. It's certainly more polite than describing them as old people, right? Just describing them as elders. It's a sign of respect and it's very polite, but we use this for senior citizens. Now honestly, my definition of a senior citizen is probably about someone who's 80 or older, 80 or older. Why? Because I think in today's modern world, people are working well into their 70s. So maybe previously you'd be considered a senior citizen at 70 or maybe even 65, but I don't see that in this modern world. When I see a 70 year old, I see somebody who's still working, still traveling. When I think of elder, I think of like grandmas and grandpa sitting in a rocking chair, like knitting. Okay. So in my mind is someone who's about 80 or older. So we have an expression. It's just like a common saying, always respect your elders. I heard this all the time when I was growing up as a kid, always respect your elders and keep in mind elders as a group, as a noun, remember just senior citizens, people who are 80 plus. This isn't people in your direct family. So it's not just talking about my grandmother, my grandfather, or anything like that. My great uncle, great, great uncle. No, it's about any senior citizen. Okay. It doesn't have to be related to you. So when we say like always respect your elders, I imagine if I'm on a bus, for example, public transportation and an elder enters the bus, gets on the bus, I would give my seat to that elder person. Why? Because that's how we respect our elders. Or same thing. If I was in a grocery store, I would let the elder person go in front of me. But remember that is 80 plus senior citizens. So that's an expression that we have always respect your elders. So let me know in the comments, is that an expression that you have in your country? I'm sure it's a universal concept. And what's something that you do to respect your elders. So for me, I always open doors, I let them go ahead of me in lines. I even offer to carry their bags if they look heavy, things like that. I always try to help out elders. What about you? What's something you do? Now, so that's how I would recommend using elders to refer to a group of senior citizens. And to summarize, when you're just talking about your brother, or, you know, a family member that is more advanced in age, use older, don't use elder, you'll sound more natural. So now you have everything you need to use these two confidently. So feel free, leave two comments below, one with older, one with elder. I already told you how to use elder. Give us an example of how you respect your elders. And if you found this video helpful, please hit the like button, share it with your friends and of course subscribe. And until next time, happy studying. Awesome job. Look at you sounding really natural, getting rid of that awkward elder brother, which we don't use in American English and using older brother instead and learning how to use elder correctly. Way to go. That's awesome. I'll see you in my next video. Bye.