前
qián
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Front, ahead; before or ago in time. After a place noun it means 'in front of', though 前边 is the usual spoken form. After a time phrase or an action it means 'ago' or 'before': 三天前 'three days ago', 睡觉前 'before going to bed'. It sounds exactly like 钱 'money'.
Trước, phía trước; về thời gian là “trước đây, trước khi”. Sau danh từ chỉ nơi nghĩa là “phía trước” (khẩu ngữ hay dùng 前边). Sau cụm thời gian hoặc hành động: 三天前 (ba ngày trước), 睡觉前 (trước khi ngủ). Đọc giống hệt 钱 (tiền bạc).
NounRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “前” mean?
Front, ahead; before or ago in time. After a place noun it means 'in front of', though 前边 is the usual spoken form. After a time phrase or an action it means 'ago' or 'before': 三天前 'three days ago', 睡觉前 'before going to bed'. It sounds exactly like 钱 'money'.
Is “前” formal or informal?
前 is generally neutral.