去年
last year
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HSK level
- Pinyin
- qùnián
- Part of speech
- noun
- Level
- HSK 2
- Strokes
- 11
- Register
- neutral
- In episodes
- 2
Stroke order for 去年
去年 is written with 11 strokes (去: 5, 年: 6). The animation replays automatically.
What does 去年 mean?
去年 (qùnián) means 'last year' — the calendar year before the current one.
The first character 去 normally means 'to go,' but here it carries an older sense of 'past / gone by,' the same sense as in 过去 (guòqù, 'the past'). 去年 functions as a time noun, so it goes BEFORE the verb in a sentence: 我去年去了北京 ('I went to Beijing last year'), never *我去了北京去年. It can also stand at the very start of the sentence as a topic: 去年我很忙 ('Last year I was busy').
Because it already marks past time, you don't need 了 to make the sentence past — though 了 often appears with the verb to mark a completed action. The matching set is 前年 (qiánnián, 'the year before last'), 今年 (jīnnián, 'this year'), 明年 (míngnián, 'next year'), 后年 (hòunián, 'the year after next').
Character by character
Memory hook: 去 (gone) + 年 (year) = the year that's gone — last year.
Hear 去年 in real episodes
去年 appears in 2 Fluentide podcast episodes at natural native speed. Each sentence plays at the easiest difficulty it exists in — switch it to hear the same moment at your level, with full pinyin and English throughout.
YouTube去年的钱，一共有六百多亿美元。
YouTube's money last year totaled more than 60 billion US dollars.
YouTube Takes 15.8% of US TV Viewing as Hollywood Fights Back
去年的决赛，看台上有六万两千三百二十九个人。
Last year's final had 62,329 people in the stands.
Wuxi Beat Changzhou 2-1 to Win First Jiangsu City Football League Title Before Record 62,356 Crowd
Example sentences
我去年去了中国。
Wǒ qùnián qù le Zhōngguó.
I went to China last year.
neutral
去年夏天很热。
Qùnián xiàtiān hěn rè.
Last summer was very hot.
spoken
他去年开始学中文。
Tā qùnián kāishǐ xué Zhōngwén.
He started learning Chinese last year.
neutral
今年的工作比去年忙。
Jīnnián de gōngzuò bǐ qùnián máng.
This year's work is busier than last year's.
neutral
Common phrases with 去年
Don't confuse 去年 with
前年 is 'the year before last' — two years ago, not one. Don't use 去年 when you mean two years back.
今年 is 'this year' (the current calendar year). 去年 is one year before that. Same 年 ending; different first character.
Frequently asked questions
Related words from the same episodes
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