Two Terms Used in Schools

Hi,

When I was in school, we spoke of 'the people ahead of us' and 'the people behind us'.

Clive

Fifth graders and second graders.

Big kids and little kids.

Older kids and younger kids.

Thank you very much, but it is a different from what I am looking for.

Maybe I should make it clearer.

I graduated from this unversity in 2003, Tom in 2001, and Mary in 2006. Then Tom is my _ and Mary is my _ .

As far as I know, English does not have the words you're looking for. Sorry!

i dont really get what you meant there but i suppose those words you are asking about might be: freshman (1st-year student), somophore (2nd-year student), junior and senior (3rd- and 4th-year student respectively). hope it helps.

One way would be that Tom was my junior and Mary was my senior at - school, university, or age.

Tom was my junior and Mary was my senior -- This is not at all idiomatic, and would invite confusion with the definitions of junior and senior mentioned above. (Junior = third-year student, senior= fourth-year student.) The most common way I can think of to say what you want to say is "Tom was a year behind me in school, and Mary was a year ahead of me."

Thank you all.
I got it. There are no such words in English.

"Tom was a year behind me in school, and Mary was a year ahead of me."

That way is perfectly acceptable to me as a native speaker of BrE but so is the junior and senior terminology. It is not confusing to me because we don't use those terms for specific years at any stage. They can be used as comparatives at any stage in the education system, in a career or in life.

They used t

Do you mean that, if I graduated from a unversity in 2003, Tom in 2001, and Mary in 2006, then I can say Tom is my senior and Mary is my junior?