when I was younger

[keannu]

I was told by an American before that "younger" or "older is a relative concept. Even if you are 60, you can say "you were younger at 50", and even if you are "10", you can say "you will be older at 15".
So when I interprete the following, do I have to judge it could be "21 or 23 or any younger age" or "just teen age days= absolute young age"?

pp38)Even though I am 26 years old, I still don't know how to swim properly. I wish I'd taken swimming classes when I was younger. In my opinion. it's much easier to learn how to do things when you're young.

 

[5jj]

There is no way of knowing exactly what was in the speaker's mind when s/he said 'younger' and 'young'.

 

[emsr2d2]

"Younger" doesn't mean "more young" specifically as a comparative with "young". It simply means "at/of a lower age than". The same goes for "older" - it just means "of a greater age than".

My 90-year-old grandfather can naturally say "My brother is younger than me. He's 88."

 

[Barb_D]

It always made me laugh when my kids were 8 or 10 or so and would say things like "Remember when I was little and..." as if they were so grown up when they said it!

If a 26-year-old said "when I was young" I would assume he or she meant sometimes during elementary school age, 6-12 or so. Especially in the context of swim lessons.

 

[5jj]

If I ever say, "I remember, when I was young, ...", my listeners usually claim that nobody can remember that far back. :-(