Why do people say 小学校の時 or 中学校の時?


When reffering to the school days, people often say `小学校の時`, `中学校の時`. Even
though this may not be wrong, they are shortened forms of relatively complex
(redundant) structures. Thus, they are close to the expressions:

> 私が通っていた学校が小学校だった時  
>  'when the school that I used to attend was an elementary school'  
>  私が通っていた学校が中学校だった時  
>  'when the school that I used to attend was a junior high school'

I think that there is a much simpler way to express the same situation, such
as:

> 私が小学生だった時  
>  'when I was an elementary school student'  
>  私が中学生だった時  
>  'when I was a junior high school student'

which would be shortened to `小学生の時`, `中学生の時`, and I do hear people (including
myself) using the latter. But still, many people seem to be using the former.
Why do people use a more complicated way of saying it?




Actually I don't find it surprising. It may be just my own experience but,

English:

> [a] "When I was in (primary/secondary/middle/high/etc.) school......" (More
> common)
>
> as opposed to,
>
> [b] "When I was a (primary/secondary/middle/high/etc.) school student......"
> (Not as common)

Chinese:

> [a] "(我在)[小/中/大]学時......" (More common)
>
> as opposed to,
>
> [b] "我[小/中/大]学生時......" (Less common)

Singlish (Singaporean English):

> [a] "primary school that time..." or "that time primary school..." (More
> common)
>
> [b] "primary school student that time..." or "that time primary school
> student..." (Almost not used)

Arguably the [a] versions are not specific enough, because you can be
referring to **any** time period that you were in (the) school, regardless of
what role you are. I.e. you could be a student, teacher, staff, random
civilian, etc. The [b] versions explicitly state that it's the time of being a
student.

Also the Singlish versions (if anyone can understand it) show quite obviously
why [a] is preferred to [b]. It's just a shorter sentence, and everything else
is deduced from context. Being a native speaker of Singlish without any formal
study into it I have no way to analyse it apart from just simply feeling that
it's correct.




Actually I don't find it surprising. It may be just my own experience but,

English:

> [a] "When I was in (primary/secondary/middle/high/etc.) school......" (More
> common)
>
> as opposed to,
>
> [b] "When I was a (primary/secondary/middle/high/etc.) school student......"
> (Not as common)

Chinese:

> [a] "(我在)[小/中/大]学時......" (More common)
>
> as opposed to,
>
> [b] "我[小/中/大]学生時......" (Less common)

Singlish (Singaporean English):

> [a] "primary school that time..." or "that time primary school..." (More
> common)
>
> [b] "primary school student that time..." or "that time primary school
> student..." (Almost not used)

Arguably the [a] versions are not specific enough, because you can be
referring to **any** time period that you were in (the) school, regardless of
what role you are. I.e. you could be a student, teacher, staff, random
civilian, etc. The [b] versions explicitly state that it's the time of being a
student.

Also the Singlish versions (if anyone can understand it) show quite obviously
why [a] is preferred to [b]. It's just a shorter sentence, and everything else
is deduced from context. Being a native speaker of Singlish without any formal
study into it I have no way to analyse it apart from just simply feeling that
it's correct.

