This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2361.
Increase your lifespan and listen today.
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In today's episode, a listener asks us about the word lifespan and how it can be used.
Today, get multiple scenarios to use this word and similar ones in English.
Plus, which country has the longest life expectancy?
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Hello, Michelle. How's it going today?
I'm good, Lindsay. I have a question for you.
All right. I'm ready.
What would you say is a typical lifespan of a car?
it really depends on what car you have Michelle I mean yeah have a an old Toyota and at this point we're gonna drive her she's a female and we're gonna we're gonna take her all the way to 300 000 miles that's what and yeah she and she is 20 years old actually no so yeah it's an old Toyota four -runner
oh 2005 or 2006 so that but that's the best I think you can really expect if you can get attached to your car, right?
You can, I guess. Oh, yeah, you can.
Are you attached to your car?
Um, no, my car needs to be cleaned.
I was, yeah. But but I'm not attached to it yet.
But I remember very specifically when we got rid of we had, you know, one of those station wagons when I was a kid.
I remember when my my mom was going to she was going to drop that car off and she was going to get her new car and i remember it was it was sad when she was like we were all kind of sad totally i think it's it's a it's a thing when you're a kid because you associate your car with all with family trips
right memories your parents a lot of times yeah kids do i i also got attached to our family cars yeah um it's sort of a weird thing but yeah why are we getting into what why did you ask me about the lifespan of a car are we getting into mechanical knowledge today God, no.
God, no. Today, we're going to be answering a listener question about the word lifespan.
So this we're going to focus on part of this listener's question today about the word lifespan.
But before we do that, guys, remember to hit follow wherever you listen to all their English so you never miss anything from us.
Yeah, guys, hit that follow button.
You know, we're in the new year now.
It's time to really kind of hunker down and get a great habit of listening to English five days a week with All There's English.
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And hit that follow button.
Good stuff, right? And send us your question, right, Michelle?
Because we love it when we can base our episodes on listener questions.
That absolutely, yeah.
Actually, we're just talking about how we've gotten some really good questions recently.
Oh, Lindsay, do you want me to read the question this time?
That'd be great, Michelle.
Could you do that for us?
Okay, so unfortunately, I don't think that I have the name of this listener.
But it said, greetings, I really enjoy listening to your podcast.
It's been so helpful for improving my English.
Does lifespan apply only to living things?
Or can it be used for objects or ideas too?
Thank you so much for your help.
Looking forward to your next episode.
Thank you so much. And it looks like this person gave us a five star a review.
Lindsay, I don't know if you can find, if you know their name.
Yeah, I don't know their name, but thank you to the listener.
We love good questions.
You can leave your question in your review wherever you listen, or you can send your question over to support at all ears English .com.
Those are great ways to get your question into our queue and make sure it's a specific question, right?
Yes. Okay. So thank you so much, Lindsay.
So what did I ask you first, Lindsay?
We were talking about a car, right?
Is a car a living thing?
Well, it's not, although I made it sound like it is by giving it a gender.
And, but sometimes we do that.
And that's another story for another day, but yeah, you, it's not a living thing.
Um, but it could have, it does have a lifespan, meaning the amount of time in which it's, it's functional that you're still driving it.
Right, right. Right.
Exactly. So it is interesting that we can use lifespan about living or non living things.
But this listener asked also about objects or ideas.
So for ideas, I don't really think so.
To me, it's more about living things or objects.
What do you think? Yeah, I really don't think I would say that for an idea, having a lifespan.
I would say maybe like a trend could have kind of a lifespan, a trend, like a way of thinking, a wave of thinking.
maybe you could say that movement had a lifespan would you say that maybe maybe it doesn't feel very natural to me natural yeah yeah there's other words that we could use for ideas that would be better I think right I'm thinking about well would you say it about maybe a trend like oh the lifespan of the skinny
jeans trend or something like that I don't know still it feels yeah I mean I it doesn't feel 100 % natural but I think if you said it people would would get it know what you mean right yeah exactly exactly yeah so to me the word uh you know lifespan can sound actually a little bit scientific right it
does it's really about the time something lasts right so the focus is on time um so let's do some examples uh lindsay you want to do the first one yes the average lifespan of a dog is 10 to 13 years which is way too short when i think about that i think keifer's halfway through his life he's middle
-aged oh my gosh i know i know i was just i just saw something about them trying to make animal dogs live longer did you see i don't know i see that i swear i saw something i don't know maybe i had a dream about it i don't know interesting all right here we go the lifespan of the carpets we sell is about 20
years nice or you should exercise sleep and eat healthy if you want to increase your lifespan so yeah we haven't mentioned this yet.
But the major way that this is used is actually about the human body, a life, someone's life, like how long are you going to live your lifespan?
Yeah, right. Average lifespan of, you know, like, for example, women tends to be longer than men.
In general, I think across the world and then lifespan can also vary based on where you're from what country you live in.
Right? Exactly. Yep.
So or here's another one.
Make sure you back to cars, make sure you regular oil changes or in order to maintain the lifespan of the car.
Yes. Nice. Yeah. So let's talk about what we do to try to increase our lifespan.
Interesting. Michelle, anything that comes to mind for you in terms of daily habits or activities?
I've been trying to exercise more.
I've recently picked it up again.
Nice. That's important.
I think now, I don't know if you are into this.
But now I've been really considering what I eat and the amount of plastic that that I use.
I was having a lot of plastic water bottles.
Okay. I've been I've been starting to become more aware of what I think this is happening to a lot of people I know, they're starting to think about plastic they use.
I just bought new stainless steel containers for my kids snacks.
And yeah, So I would say that's something I'm starting to consider.
Also, I think about, you know, I do like the idea of eating fewer chemicals.
So I'm considering really I'm starting to consider really what I put in my body.
And yeah, for sure.
Yeah. Maybe eating less meat, more vegetables.
So I would say that that's been my focus more so recently.
And then it's also about what you don't do.
Right. I, you know, don't, like, I don't, I don't smoke.
I, you know, it's certain things like that.
So for sure. Yeah. What about you?
well I think there's just a lot more research coming out now about nutrition and uh ultra processed foods and I try to I'm all about inflammation anti -inflammatory stuff like you know the food that can bring down your inflammation in your body right like uh omega -3s and cherries and fruits and like
strong polyphenols that kind of thing I really nerd out on this stuff Michelle I really do no me too recently I've been getting into it I don't know maybe it's just something that happens and it's a trend right now i think people are talking a lot we're really raising the consciousness especially around
processed food it's true and also dyes that's a new thing oh yeah interesting right yeah if you have to put dye and like food coloring into your food something's probably wrong i think that i think wasn't one of the red dyes was just banned it's gonna be was it yeah yeah that was big news so yeah interesting trying
to increase our lifespans.
Yeah. So I think the main way we use the word lifespan, you know, probably 60 % of the time it is about, you know, the human life, right?
Broadly about human beings.
And then, you know, in different parts of the world and, you know, ages and genders and that kind of thing.
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apply hiring indeed is all you need okay michelle so there are other ways that we could say lifespan that might actually be better for what we talked about the lifespan of a trend right if we want to talk about trends or ideas there might be better ways to say that let's see if we can explore here what else
all right well we're gonna explore some similar ideas so the first one is duration so this is more used for objects right i wouldn't talk about a person's duration that would be very weird it makes it makes it feel too objectified the person right yeah so you can increase the duration of your clothes
by washing them according to the instructions on the tag.
Yeah. The duration of your clothes.
Interesting. I've never used that for clothes, but I guess you could.
Yeah. Am I making that up?
I mean, I mean, yeah, sure.
Yeah. I don't know how long your clothes.
I mean, Lindsay, I think we've talked about this.
You, um, and neither you or I, uh, really wash our laundry correctly.
Is that right? Oh no, no, no, never, never.
I just don't have the time or the energy to separate my wides and my darks.
And I often wash my jeans, which you're not supposed to.
I know. I commit all that.
Next one is life cycle.
So slightly more about the actual circle of life, like the Lion King.
Shout out to the Lion King.
We love it. It's a good one.
The life cycle of something.
This kind of talks about changes that things go through throughout their life too, right?
So lifespan is about amount of time.
Life cycle is about stages, usually.
So today, we will learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.
Exactly. Yeah. Perfect.
What else, Michelle?
Life expectancy. So again, these are similar words.
Words in the same vein, but they're not exactly the same.
Life expectancy. So that's how long something will live.
Now, would you use life expectancy for an object?
Would you use life expectancy for an object?
No, probably not. I feel like you have to be alive.
Don't you think? But I think, you know, more commonly, that's how you would use it.
But I do think that like, for example, the life expectancy of a phone is probably about four years, but it may not work that well, even before then.
I feel like that sounds, do you think that sounds natural or not or a little life expectancy?
It feels a little weird to me because when i think about again when i think about life expectancy i think about like human beings you know what i mean kind of yeah how long someone will live but so i would generally advise to stay more around thing you know around humans but uh this actually leads me
to a more interesting question michelle oh life expectancy around the world countries yeah oh do you know how low the us is we're pretty low aren't we we're very low so i'm looking at one one source and i want to encourage our listeners to go and research this um but i had heard this before based on this source
world worldometers .info it looks like we're number 48 oh very low who takes the cake japan yeah the top this must be something about the diet in asia so number one hong kong two Japan, three South Korea, four French Polynesia.
Very interesting. So I would love to know what our listeners think about what determines lifespan.
Like what's the secret of being at the top of this chart?
What do you think it is, Michelle?
I think it might be what you eat.
What do you think? Yeah.
Well, I have a feeling it's a combination between what you eat and how often you move.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Because I remember when I lived in Japan and again, on this chart, Japan is number two, and I would want to validate this against other charts, but I remember how much I moved just walking to the train all the time.
Yep. I didn't really drive.
Trains cover the whole country.
It's just amazing the amount of walking I did.
So I want to hear from our listeners on that, Michelle.
Maybe we could do a follow -up on this idea of lifespan across the world.
It's so important. Yeah.
Yeah. That would be interesting.
Okay. I'm going to look into that lifespan around the world.
Lindsay, here's another question.
Well, what's the longest time you think you've had a piece of technology?
And what is it? Wow.
That's a great question.
Well, I actually had my last computer for quite a while.
I had it for about five years and I just got a brand new one.
But yeah, you did get a new one.
Yeah. Shout out to Dell.
A long time. So the lifespan of that computer.
Yeah, I guess you could say lifespan of a computer.
I think that makes sense to me.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. All right, guys.
So now we are going to share results from a poll we did on Spotify.
Guys, we've been doing these really fun polls on Spotify.
And this was from episode 2337 of All Ears English.
This was called, Why do Americans love bulk buying?
So if you haven't, well, and maybe, hey, also connected to lifespan, what you're eating.
This might be connected to why we're number 48.
That's hilarious. I was not thinking about it at all that way.
But yes, so head on over and listened to that episode.
But what was the question on the poll for that?
Yeah, the question was, you know, is Costco a big connection topic in your culture?
So not necessarily are you a Costco shopper, but is it a connection topic?
Do you talk about it?
Are there jokes about Costco?
Are there, you know, shared, is there shared enthusiasm around the Costco idea, right?
Yes or no. So it was an interesting even split, Michelle.
Yes was 52 % and no was 47%.
Interesting. interesting yeah yeah very interesting some all right some costco fans and some costco fans more than i actually thought but it is a global concept now for sure uh should we go into a quick role play before we finish let's do it here we go so i am a salesman and you are looking for a new
couch all right here we go all right so how long do these couches typically last well the duration is based on how they are treated.
So you definitely want to use the cleaner every six months.
Oh, so that increases the lifespan?
Oh, for sure. The life expectancy is about five years if you aren't careful and 20 years if you are.
Whoa, what a difference.
Yeah, in the life cycle of a couch, the length of time really depends on how much you rough it up.
Interesting. Good to know.
Good to know. I didn't know that I had to use a special cleaner for my couch.
Jeez. Yeah. I'm learning a lot here.
All right. The goal though, is to be not be on the couch too much, right?
So that's above higher than 48 on the list.
So many connections we're making.
Yeah, for sure. All right.
Let's break this down.
So you said, well, the duration is based on how they are treated, right?
So the duration of the, like how long the couch will last is based on how it's treated.
Okay. Yep. And then you, I said, I'll use the cleaner every six months.
And you said, So that increases the lifespan.
Perfect. And then you said, Oh, for sure.
The life expectancy is about five years if you aren't careful and 20 years if you are.
And then I said, yeah, and the life cycle of a couch, the length of time really depends on how much you rough it up.
So again, we, this is extreme, right?
We're not going to use all of these in ones.
However, um, it, you know, another point is it's kind of silly, right?
The life cycle of the couch, this is to me a point of having some fun with the language right we don't to say the life cycle of a couch obviously the couch isn't living it doesn't have you know we don't think of it as a butterfly or you know but it's not going to get married one day and like you know
have like typical life cycle moments but sometimes we do things we've talked about this before personifying objects yeah yeah so so this can happen um so right yeah i mean or or like how i put a gender on my car right at the top of the episode we do persona maybe it's time to revisit that topic on all
airs english michelle of personifying objects come back to that we did an episode a long time ago that would be kind of cool to come back to don't you think right yeah absolutely i do think so interesting yeah and we're gonna have a good poll maybe the poll today will be related to the lifespan around the world,
life expectancy around the world.
We're going to ask some kind of questions.
So come over to Spotify and participate in the poll, guys.
All right, good stuff.
And don't forget to hit follow on All Ears English.
Yes, absolutely. What's the takeaway for today?
What do you think? Well, I mean, this is such a diverse topic.
You can talk about anything from how long people live around the world to how long certain items will live or survive or last, right?
So just try to dive into trying one of the ways we talked about today and try it out.
Just try it out. Right?
Absolutely. All right.
Well, this was a lot of fun.
Thank you to our listener for that question.
We love them. Please continue to send us your very good questions.
All right, Michelle.
Take care. Bye. Bye.
