A week ago I "filled up 50 years" and "entered my 51st year" or, to make me sound even older, I'm now "in my sixth decade" 🎉
This is literally how people in parts of southeast Europe commonly refer to age. Yes, they make you a year or even a decade older.
In English, when we talk about someone's age, then someone has completed that amount of orbits around the sun, e.g. someone like me born in April 1975 will now have turned 50 after having been 49 for a year. The languages of the former Yugoslavia use the same notion in everyday speech too, just instead of "being" X years old, you "have" X years. But talking in slightly more formal circumstances or to emphasise an age-related matter (much loved by tabloid newspapers in the region), then the above form is used.
Here's an example of a recent headline in Croatian:
📍 "Preminuo papa Franjo u 89. godini života"
Literally "Pope Francis has died in his 89th year of life".
However, when translating into English, this actually is:
📍 "Pope Francis has died aged 88"
Use the awkward literal translation from Croatian in English and your readers will still think mistakenly he was 89.
To make sure that your text and copy from languages from former Yugoslavia are correctly translated, trust me to do the job. Contact me at info@nicknasev.com and let's discuss.
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