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von washuu-de (DE), 2014-12-23, 18:34   Spam?  

German "officials":(Beamten) Language is even painful to read for a native German like me.

Btw. "Altersjahres" is weird. In German it should be "Lebensjahres". Maybe the writer isn't really fit in German ;-)

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von Windfall (GB), 2014-12-23, 18:48   Spam?  

I think it's probably Swiss German, so perhaps that's the favoured word there. Thanks, I'll go with my version with the birthday so that English speakers don't spend ages trying to work out if that means when they're 59, 60 or 61.

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von washuu-de (DE), 2014-12-23, 19:32   Spam?  

I will be hard for me when I have to differentiate between DE,AT and CH-german. I'm just a beginner here.
Next time I'll stress that I only know DE-german and my English is a mixture of American dialects and what I'm learning from watching BBC.

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von Windfall (GB), 2014-12-23, 20:00   Spam?  

Being on the forum longer doesn't really help that :). I've been on it for years and I still failed to tell you it was Swiss German (because I didn't realise there was a difference from German German in this case). That's why Paul introduced the letters after user names so you can see where people originate from - mine's GB, so you get British English from me unless I specify otherwise, and your DE makes me assume you're a native speaker of German German. Btw, it's fine to answer me (and most of the other native English speakers on this forum) in German. I write in English because it's easier and quicker for me.

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von skadicct (CH), 2014-12-24, 12:30   Spam?  

im Zusammenhang mit Renten oder Zulagen verwendet [CH - Schweiz]. Das kommt wohl daher, dass diejenigen, die am 29. Februar Geburtstag haben, nicht soviele Geburtstage haben, bis sie 60 sind, wie die andern Leute.
Der DE-DE Ausdruck Lebensjahr statt Altersjahr macht es auch nicht einfacher: Er starb im 20. Lebensjahr - er war also 19 und etwas.

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von Windfall (GB), 2014-12-24, 12:39   Spam?  

Thanks, skadicct, that's a good point about birthdays. Perhaps I should go with "reached the age of" instead of "birthdays" as presumably people born on 29 February are legally considered to age at the same rate as the rest of us, whether or not they are legally considered to have a birthday each year. When are people born on 29 February legally considered to reach their next age (e.g. reach the age of 18 and be able to drink) anyway?