Learn English – Words to say about someone being almost the same age as you are

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Seeking the alternatives to saying about someone that he is almost the same age as I am, I came across the words agemate and batchmate.

In the Russian language, there are several one-word terms to tell about a person born around the year you were born:

ровесник — approximately of the same age with you;

одногодок — born in the same year,

погодок — born a year or so before or after you were born,

одноклассник — the one who were with you in the same grade at school,

однокашник — college/university mate who entered the educational institution in the same year you did it (the usual age to begin a higher education being 17-19 years old), and a few more terms.

Could the native English speakers answer me if there are the English words to match their Russian equivalents I tried to define in English?

Also, about the two words I mentioned in the beginning of the post:

Are they really in use?

In your culture, what would be the maximal age difference between the persons to say that they are agemates?

Best Answer

(AmE) I don't use or hear "agemate" or "batchmate". I might understand what you mean by "agemate", but definitely not "batchmate". Personally, "batchmate" sounds like computer programming jargon.

If it interests you, please consider the following expressions.

  1. We are the same age.

This does not imply that we were born on the same day in the same year. It doesn't even imply we were born in the same month. I think most would agree that it implies that we're are about, at most one year apart. For example, we are both 25 years old.

  1. We are both X years old.

This is pretty clear: we've been alive for (at least) X years. Maybe I am closer to 26, and the other person just turned 25, but we are both 25 years old.

  1. We're about the same age.

This is bit ambiguous, but I think you can certainly use it if two of you are about 2 or 3 years apart in age.

  1. We are X years apart.
  2. We were born X years apart.

4 means that the difference between my age and another person's age is X years. 5 might be used by siblings.

As others have mentioned regarding your other requests, you might consider contemporaries and classmates.

In college and high school, students are often called

  1. Freshman (plural, freshmen; first year student)
    We're freshmen!
  2. Sophomore(s) (second year student)
  3. Junior(s) (third year student)
  4. Senior(s) (fourth year student)

In college, students are also called first/second/third/fourth/etc-year students. Sometimes, the word student(s) is omitted.

  1. We're first-year students!
  2. We're first-years!
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