Meanings of the words former and life

Lina711 said:

Does the saying phrase “a former life” have the meaning of mean a previous stage in someone’s life?

For example, is it correct to say to someone “You were a coach in a former life” and to mean by this during a past period during of your life you had the career of being they were a coach, and I am but not talking in my question about the concept of what is called reincarnation?

I want to know if we can correctly use this sentence in the English language to mean refer to during a period of someone’s life some time ago.

Some sentences in the language English have different meanings; so is this sentence one of these? Could this sentence mean in the formal English language something different than what is called other than reincarnation?

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emsr2d2 said:

Please note my corrections above.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that, in British English at least, the more common phrase is "in a previous life".

This sentence contains a phrase that could be taken two ways. The sentence as a whole is unlikely to be taken to mean reincarnation, purely due to the fact that coaches (I assume you're talking about sports coaches or a personal trainers) haven't been around very long.

Context, as always, would help determine which is meant. If I said "I was a civil servant in a previous life", most people would assume I was simply talking about a job I had a long time ago. If I said "I was a Benedictine monk in a previous life", some people would stare at me confusedly, and some would assume I was talking about reincarnation.

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Lina711 said:

Just to make sure of what I understood from your answer please assure me if correct:
In British English the phrases “ previous life” or “former life” could have the meaning of a period of time long ago in someone’s life and when we look at the context this helps us to determine the meaning

The original sentence that a woman said to me actually was “You must have been an accountant in a former life” I was really confused of what it meant.
So is the meaning of her sentence that I had the job of an accountant at a certain period of my life? I am emphasizing that I want to know the real meaning of the sentence in the language.

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Tarheel said:

We don't say "the British language". British English and American English are variants of the same language.

My guess is that she was impressed with your math skills (or something like that). It was probably meant as a compliment. In short, she's saying that there is a good possibility that you were an accountant at one point. Or at least that she wouldn't be surprised to learn that that was true

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Lina711 said:

Thank you both for being patient with me. I’ll try to pay attention to punctuation

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