HSK 1 · Time

昨天 zuótiān “yesterday” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 昨天 means

  1. yesterday

How to say 昨天

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale昨zuó2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale天tiān1st tone, high and level

昨天 in a sentence

  1. 昨天我吃了米饭。

    Zuótiān wǒ chī le mǐfàn.

    Yesterday I ate rice.

    Sentence #10171225 from Tatoeba

  2. 昨天天气非常好。

    Zuótiān tiānqì fēicháng hǎo.

    Yesterday, the weather was very nice.

    Sentence #1793871 from Tatoeba

  3. 你从昨天开始就忙吗？

    Nǐ cóng zuótiān kāishǐ jiù máng ma?

    Have you been busy since yesterday?

    Sentence #5903480 from Tatoeba

How 昨天 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 昨 (zuó) with each of its parts in a different colour
昨zuóyesterday
  • 日sun · rìMeaning part
  • 乍first time · zhàSound part

日 hints at the meaning (sun); 乍 (zhà) hints at the sound. Compare it with zuó.

The character 天 (tiān) with each of its parts in a different colour
天tiānday
  • 一one · yī
  • 大big · dà

Memory aidA person 大 with the sky 一 above: sky, heaven, day.

How to write 昨天

昨 9 strokes · 天 4 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

昨天 (zuótiān) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 昨天 (zuótiān). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 昨天

Words with 天

天tiān · day今天jīntiān · today明天míngtiān · tomorrow天气tiānqì · weather白天báitiān · daytime星期天Xīngqītiān · Sunday聊天liáotiān · to chat夏天xiàtiān · summer冬天dōngtiān · winter春天chūntiān · spring (season)

More words: Time

星期xīngqī · week今天jīntiān · today明天míngtiān · tomorrow中午zhōngwǔ · noon现在xiànzài · now点diǎn · o’clock分钟fēnzhōng · minute去年qùnián · last year

FAQs

昨天 (zuótiān) means “yesterday”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it zuótiān: zuó with a 2nd tone, then tiān with a 1st tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 昨天 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type zuotian with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 昨天 from the suggestions. Typing zuotian into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
昨天 is an HSK 1 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.