Jun 12, 2021
Chicago – There’s nothing like age to make you humble. I’m turning a nice, round number later this year let’s just say I’m アラフォー (
arafō, around 40) and leave it at that and perhaps because of that, the phrase いい歳 (
ii toshi) has been rattling around in my mind.
If you take いい歳 too literally, you end up with an English term like “good age.” But a more accurate translation would be “decent age” or “sensible age,” at least in a vacuum without any context.
However, language is insidious. While I was sitting here chuckling at myself for getting “pretty old,” I didn’t realize until I looked into the phrase further that it can actually have quite detrimental effects on people, depending on how it’s used.