昨天
zuó tiān
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Yesterday, the day before today. Time words stand before the verb, never at the end as in English: 我昨天去了 'I went yesterday'. The verb does not change for the past; to say that something did not happen, use 没 and drop 了: 我昨天没去 'I did not go yesterday'. The day before yesterday is 前天.
Hôm qua, tức ngày liền trước hôm nay. Từ chỉ thời gian đứng trước động từ, không đặt ở cuối câu: 我昨天去了 (hôm qua tôi đã đi). Muốn nói việc đã không xảy ra thì dùng 没 và bỏ 了: 我昨天没去 (hôm qua tôi không đi). Hôm kia là 前天.
NounRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 063 (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 “昨天” mean?
Yesterday, the day before today. Time words stand before the verb, never at the end as in English: 我昨天去了 'I went yesterday'. The verb does not change for the past; to say that something did not happen, use 没 and drop 了: 我昨天没去 'I did not go yesterday'. The day before yesterday is 前天. Literally: past day
Is “昨天” formal or informal?
昨天 is generally neutral.