'Young' or 'Younger'

Thank you for writing, David.

感謝您寫信，大衛。

This is a good question.

這是一個很好的問題。

The short answer is yes, you can use young instead of younger, but using young instead of younger does change the meaning of the sentence, just a bit.

簡短的回答是肯定的，你可以用 young 代替 younger，但用 young 代替 younger 會稍微改變句子的意思。

Let's look at the differences between the two choices.

讓我們來看看這兩個選擇之間的差異。

Young and younger are both adjectives.

young 和 younger 都是形容詞。

Adjectives are words that describe nouns.

形容詞是用來描述名詞的詞語。

Younger is a comparative adjective.

younger 是一個比較級形容詞。

Comparative adjectives are used to compare two people or things.

比較級形容詞用於比較兩個人或事物。

Comparative adjectives are easy to recognize because they often have an -er ending.

比較級形容詞很容易辨識，因為它們通常以 -er 結尾。

They are also often, but not always, followed by the conjunction than.

它們也經常（但不總是）後面跟著連接詞 than。

Let's look again at David's original example sentence.

讓我們再來看一次 David 的原始例句。

My mother had a sweet singing voice when she was younger.

我母親年輕時擁有甜美的歌聲。

In this situation, younger is describing mother, but it is not so clear what is being compared.

在這種情況下，「年輕」是用來形容母親，但並不清楚是在比較什麼。

That is because we sometimes leave out information from a sentence.

這是因為我們有時會省略句子中的資訊。

Even without the extra information, however, the listener or reader is still likely to understand the full thought or meaning.

然而，即使沒有這些額外資訊，聽眾或讀者仍很可能理解完整的想法或意義。

As readers, we understand the full meaning of David's sentence to be, "My mother had a sweet singing voice when she was younger than she is now."

作為讀者，我們理解大衛這句話的完整意思是：「我母親年輕時的歌聲比現在甜美。」

We do not know how old the mother is now, but we know she had a sweet singing voice when she was younger than her current age.

我們不知道母親現在的年齡，但知道她在比現在年輕的時候擁有甜美的歌聲。

Let's say for example that the writer's mother is sixty years old.

讓我們假設這位作家的母親今年六十歲。

The writer of the sentence could mean that his mother had a sweet singing voice when she was forty years old,

這句話的作者可能意指他的母親在四十歲時擁有甜美的歌聲，

for example, or the writer could mean that his mother had a sweet singing voice when she was fifteen years old.

例如，或者作者意指他的母親在十五歲時擁有甜美的歌聲。

Both fifteen years old and forty years old are younger than sixty.

十五歲和四十歲都比六十歲年輕。

Now let's consider how the sentence's meaning might change if we were to use young instead of younger.

現在讓我們思考，如果我們將「younger」改為「young」，句子的意義可能會如何改變。

The sentence would be, "My mother had a sweet singing voice when she was young."

這句話就會變成：「我母親年輕時擁有甜美的歌聲。」

The meaning has changed just a bit.

意義僅有微小的改變。

Now it is clear that the writer means his mother had a sweet singing voice when she was a young person, or in her youth.

現在很清楚，作者意指他的母親在年輕時，也就是在她青春年少時，擁有甜美的歌聲。

We hope this explanation has helped you, David.

希望這個解釋能幫助你，大衛。

Do you have a question about American English?

你有關於美式英語的問題嗎？

Send us an email at learningenglish@voanews. Com.

請寄電子郵件至 learningenglish@voanews.com。

And that's Ask a Teacher.

以上就是「問老師」。

I'm Gina Bennett.

我是吉娜·班奈特。