Character: 昨 (zuó) yesterday

昨 (zuó) means yesterday, the character is visualized as the Sun next to a plow turning up soil
Pinyin zuó
Meaning yesterday; past
Radical 日 繁體字 same
Two writing patterns can be found in the character 昨 (zuó) yesterday: 日, highlighted in red; and 乍, highlighted in yellow 日
乍

writing patterns, not components

Chinese character phono-semantic compoundcategory: phono-semantic compound

Chinese character left right structurestructure: left right

9stroke count

HSK 1

Stroke order of the Chinese character 昨 (zuó) yesterday. There are 9 strokes, and the character is written from left to right

Breakdown

昨 (zuó) “yesterday” is a phono-semantic compound character. It has 日 (rì) “sun” serving as its radical, but since it also means “day,” it indicates a time in the past. The phonetic component is 乍 (zhà) “suddenly”; it is often associated with the initial (z-) when standing as a part of a character.

zuó
昨
yesterday		 rì
日
sun		 yì
易
easy		 yīn
音
sound
zhà
乍
suddenly		 zhǎi
窄
narrow		 zhà
炸
to burst

Used as a morpheme/word

昨 (zuó) “yesterday” cannot be used alone as a word.

Wordlist

How to pronounce

This character sounds like the connected d-swo of “kid swore.”

2nd Pinyin Yale IPA
Initial z- dz [ts]
Final -uo wo [ʊo]

Chinese character practice sheet

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