I have an older sister. I have an elder sister. What's the difference between these? I'm teacher Mike and today we are going to talk about the words older, elder, elderly and senior-citizen. Older is the comparative form of old. If you are 31 and I am 33, I am older than you. If my house was built ten years ago and your house was built 30 years ago, your house is older than mine. Here are three more easy examples. She has an older brother. My dog is older than my cat. He's an older employee. Although in that last example it's not really clear whether older is about his age or about how-long he has been an employee. Elder is basically the same as older, but we usually only use it for people within a family. We don't usually use it for things, ideas or people who are not family. Also, we don't say "elder than". We usually put elder right before the noun. So we can say she has an elder brother just like we can say she has an older brother, they mean the-same-thing. 100 years ago, elder was much more common in this situation, but nowadays older is more common and elder actually sounds a bit formal. My dog is elder than my cat. We can't say this one and there are two reasons. First, my dog and my cat are not related. They are not brothers or sisters. So we cannot use elder, which is usually only used for people within a family. Second, again, we never say "elder than". What about he's an elder employee? This one also doesn't work. And again, it's because we usually only use elder to describe family members. Now that we understand when we can and cannot use elder, let's just look-at a few more easy examples. My elder son plays football. Sarah is the-elder of the two sisters. His elder brother is a doctor. However, elder can also be a noun. An elder is a person who is older than you. And often we use this word when we are talking about people who we respect, usually because of their age or their experience. My parents taught me to respect my elders. That means they taught me to behave nicely around older people. In many villages, there are old people who make decisions for the community. We often call those people the village elders. The adjective elderly describes people who are approximately 65 years old or older. It's basically a polite way to say old. There are many elderly people in Japan. She takes-care-of her elderly parents. The elderly man likes to tell stories to his nephews. And finally, we have the nouns senior or senior-citizen, which also refer to old people. For example. Both of my parents are senior-citizens, so, yeah, that's-all for today. If you found this video helpful, please don't forget to give it a like and leave-a-comment.