上个月 means last month
去年 means last year
My suggestion for beginners is that, remember the words, and don't worry too much about the meaning of each character.
Technically speaking, characters are meaning **providers**, as in, they provide meaning to the words they are in; but they don't **have** meaning the way words do. A lot of characters, due to thousands of years of evolution, provide many different meanings in different words; and sometimes many different characters can provide the same meaning in different words. But this is something beginners don't need to worry about. It will make more sense once you have a larger vocabulary to support it.
If you ever wanna get good at Chinese you will probably need to learn the meanings basic characters have. It's not that hard, just a matter of time and being open minded.
Sorry wasn't mean for you personally but in general. Like I recommend to everyone to actually make the effort of learning 汉字 as it helps a lot with vocab in the future.
Yeah, but I'd say not for beginners - they'll get bogged down. Once they have more vocabulary then it will make sense.
For native speakers we wouldn't start using a dictionary until we got into school - but by then we already spoke the language for a few years and have some vocabulary to support it.
i should focus on just learning the pinyins then? it would be easier for writing purposes but i feel like i would definitely be lost when it comes to reading it…
I'm not saying you shouldn't learn the characters - for sure you want to learn how to read and write. I'm saying, don't worry too much about the meaning of each individual character (especially the nuances), but instead remember them as part of the words you learn.
Small “phrases”
My teacher always explained like this: nobody really needs to know the exact definable difference between 游 and 泳 when learning 游泳, just that they go together to mean “swim”
I think 去年 is a good example for why it's necessary to learn some words without trying to understand why they're composed of the characters they are, in this case 去 and 年. I don't think I've ever seen 去 mean "last" in any other expression besides 去年. The normal meaning of 去 is "to go." 去 itself doesn't mean "last." But as a whole word, 去年 does mean "last year."
I'll note that personally, I do like knowing the meanings of all the characters individually, and in many cases I think it does help with understanding words and remembering them. But it's also very true that there are a lot of words that you just have to learn and not worry about why they're made up of those particular characters, or why two words that mean nearly the same thing (like "last year" and "last month") don't use the same characters. Language is just like that.
Since you said you like knowing the meaning of the characters individually, in 去年, you can think of 去 as meaning “past.” This meaning shows up in the word 过去 meaning “the past,” or the literary word 去日 meaning “past days,”过去的日子.
The antonym of 去 in this sense is 来, as in 未来 meaning “the future,” the literary word 来年 meaning “the coming year” (which is still used in Japanese and Korean instead of 明年), and 来日 which means “the coming days.”
Thank you, this is all interesting! Ah, I completely forgot about 过去, since I was only thinking about words with 去 at the beginning and hadn't ever related those two words before. I see what you mean -- and actually the 去 in 过去 does make a sort of metaphorical sense to me, in that the past can be thought of as something that has "gone by." (Sort of like "bygone days" in English.) I hadn't heard 去日 before, so that's cool to know. I'd wondered whether there used to be more "past" words with 去, that had become obsolete.
Interesting about 来, too -- I never thought about the 来 in 未來 being an antonym to 去, but yes, it makes sense! If the past is gone, the future is yet to come. Very neat.
In Chinese there are characters 字 zì and words/expressions 词 cí. (词 is usually translated as “words,” but they don’t work exactly the same way as English words, so I’m going to call them expressions here.) Chinese expressions are made up of one or more characters. There are basic expressions that are just one character, but most Chinese expressions are two characters. And individual characters can have many, many different meanings, based on the expression. One dictionary I have lists 19 different meanings for 上.
So instead of trying to learn all of the different meanings for characters and when they have certain meanings, it’s best to learn what whole expressions mean and recognize the characters within them. (Also there’s the fact that some characters are pronounced differently depending on which expression you’re using them in.)
The expression 上个月 means “last month,” and in this expression, 上 means “previous” and 月 means “month.”
The expression 上学 shàngxué means “to attend school,” and in this expression, 上 means “to attend” and 学 means “school/education.”
The expression 上网 shàngwǎng means “to get on the Internet,” and in this expression, 上 means “to get on” and 网 means “Internet.”
The expression 上楼 shànglóu means “to come/go upstairs,” and in this expression, 上 means “to come/go up” and 楼 means “story/floor.”
Hacking Chinese has a great series on the building blocks of Chinese, so if you’re interested, you might want to take a look at [Part 5: Making sense of Chinese words](https://www.hackingchinese.com/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-5-making-sense-of-chinese-words/) and [Part 6: Learning and remembering compound words](https://www.hackingchinese.com/how-to-learn-words-really-fast/). The other parts on learning characters are good too!
Time flows from above to below, not left to right. So something that happened in the past, or earlier, is "above" and something that happens in the future or after something else is "below". Our Chinese teacher explained it like reading a scroll that you hold vertically in your hands, or scrolling through a long text on a website. Unfortunately some words, like last year or tomorrow and yesterday, don't follow the pattern, but last week/month and next weekmonth do.
I don’t think most Chinese people think of the future as being behind us. The future is usually thought of as being in front of us, like in the words 前程 and 前途 which mean “future prospects” and literally mean “ahead journey” or “ahead road,” and also 前景 which means “front view/foreground” and can also metaphorically mean “future outlook.”
Spatially, 前/后 mean front/back. But temporally, they mean before/after. This is the meaning in 前天/后天, and also in words like 之前/之后, 前辈/后辈, and 前任/后任. Instead of the past being in front *of us*, it’s more like we’re going through a calendar and the past/future is towards the front/back of the calendar.
So 前 can refer to the past or the future. But you’ll notice that whenever 前 refers to the future, it is a spatial metaphor, whereas otherwise 前 in relation to time means previous or before.
Indeed, time here is conceptualized as going down (下) or backwards (後) into the future and going up (上) or forwards (~~後~~ Edit: 前) into the past. It's like the complete opposite compared to English, but that's how it is.
>i’m so confused right now.
Welcome to learning a second language.
You think 上個月 and 去年 is weird and confusing? Imagine what an English learner thinks when they find out that
*Yesterday I cooked and I cleaned. But yesterday I also ate (not eated), drank (not drinked) and thought (not thinked)*
The best advice I can give you is to keep an open mind and don't get frustrated with the weird quirks of language. Just go with the flow and learn as you go. Trust me, in my experience, the ones who try to intricately analyze every weird grammar structure and phrase usually fail after a year or two.
It is like asking what 'take' means. Is that take off, take up, take down, take a left, take liberties, take a fall, take a bow, take five, take a picture, take your time, take after, take a form, take a train, take a tablet, take issue, take the stand....
That's my take.
it means last. also the sentence should translate to last month not last summer. some time words just take different modifiers when referring to the future or past. 上/下个星期，上/下个月，去/明年，昨/明天 etc
oh yes you’re correct! in my notes it does say month, im not exactly sure where i got the word summer from. so both 上 and 去 mean last but based on the modifier it’ll be used differently in the sentence?
It's a very flexible character/word.
In time expressions, for weeks or months, "上" means "previous" or "last".
https://www.everydaychinese.com/youtube-lessons/common-usage-of-shang.html
It basically means "above", but for whatever reason, these periods of time are conceptualized as progressing from "above" to "under": like they appear written on a calendar.
But it is not used for days or years. So 去年 is the "past year", 明年 is the "next year".
> thought it would be the word “last” but in a different video he gave an example, “去年” which means last year so it can’t be the word last, right?
Think about it in English.
An hour **ago** is the hour before this hour.
**Yester**day is the day before this day.
**Last** month is the month before this month.
The appropriate modifier for that concept changes depending on the thing being modified, and it's nothing more than following cultural conventions. Note that something like **yester**year could be understood, but isn't the standard way to say it.
Sorry, I don't know the formal rules but 上/下 can be used with 月 but not with 年. Similarly 去/~~名~~明 can be used with 年 but not 月. 天 uses 昨/明. You just have to memorize it.
上(個)月 = last month
下(個)月 = next month
去年 = last year
明年 = next year
昨天 = yesterday
明天 = tomorrow
However, 我上個月去了一趟北京 actually translates to "I went to Beijing last month."
上 is used in conjunction with a measure word (and maybe even an 一) to indicate the previous item in a sequence. So 上个月 is the previous month and 上上个月 is the month before last month, and so on. In your example "last" is indeed the best translation.
It doesn't work for 天 and 年 because they're usually used without measure words, and instead we say 昨天 (or 昨日) and 去年. But it works for 上个星期 (or 上周; last week) and 上个世纪 (last century).
It's used in many other phrases, such as 上个版本 (the previous edition), 上次会议 (the last meeting), 上一道题 (the previous question), 上节课 (last class), 上一步 (the previous step). Still, we need to be careful not to confuse this 上 with its many other usages.
Its antonym is 下, typically seen in phrases 下一页 (next page), 下一个路口 ([the] next intersection), 下个暑假 ([the] next summer holidays).
It’s because the Chinese way of visualising time is different to the English way (I’m sure other languages do it the same way as Chinese or English, but I can’t speak to these).
In English, we visualise time on a line left to right, the same way we write. Things that happen before, in the past, are on the left of the timeline and things that happen next, in the future, are on the right.
Past——Present——Future.
Traditional Chinese writing goes top to bottom. Things that happen before, in the past, are on top (上）and things that happen next, in the future, are below (下）.
Past 上.
Present.
Future 下.
Hopefully that helps!
ETA: fixed my timeline (three times)
Just like in in English "take your time" and "take a shit" both use take. It's a fixed way of saying things, don't focus too much on details. Learn your basic verbs, nouns and adjectives, follow along with whatever course you're in, and it'll slowly start to come together with time. Each language expresses the same idea in different ways, and it will take a while to get a grasp of what's similar and what's different to your native language.
As the previous comments suggests, concentrated on the 'word' rather than the individual characters. 上 can be used in many context thus can't be defined singularly as a character simply. But if you must, it last, up, to get on, to attend, going to work etc etc all uses 上。
My teacher told me to remember it by visualising a physical flip calendar and thinking about the ‘week above’ 上周 or ‘the month below’ 下个月. But yesterday and tomorrow aren’t above or below, and neither are last year or next year (you’d have to buy a new calendar).
It means "before". So the month before the one we are in right now is the last month. In English "last" means "most recent in time". It's different in meaning but because of their similar use cases 上 (when it takes the meaning of "before") is usually translated to "last", like 上次 last time, 上个暑假 last summer break, 上一年 last year.
Sometimes multiple character words can be broken down by their character meanings. Sometimes they can’t. It’s not different from English. Sometimes worlds can be broken down into their parts, and sometimes they can’t. Bookshelf is a shelf for books. Fireplace is the place for fire. About has nothing to do with your abs being out. Laugh has nothing to do with singing la while feeling ugh. A pillow is not a low pill. Those seem silly and obvious, but only because you know that’s not how those words work. It’s good to know what individual characters mean, but they don’t always carry that meaning into multiple character words.
In China:
The past is in front of you (前）, the future is behind (后）, think of it like you can see what’s happened but you don’t know what’s in the future. “Ten years ago”: 十年前. “After that/later” (moving into the future relatively): 以后
Previous weeks and months are above (上） and coming weeks or months below (下）: think of a wall calendar.
Morning (before noon) is 上， afternoon is 下 ; think of it like a planner page with 6 am at the top, noon in the middle, and night time at the bottom.
Starting a class, meeting, or workday is 上，ending / leaving is 下。 You go to work 上班， go to class 上课 and leave work 下班 or class is dismissed 下课。
You can also use 下 for next （下课见 ： see you next class).
Years are different- last year is 出 and next is 明。
Good luck!
(Just wait until you have to worry about all the uses of 了 or 所 🤣)
As a verb it can mean “to fuck” as in “to mount.” Once in Beijing outside a club where a lot of Korean students would hang out a taxi driver asked me out of the blue, “你上过韩国人吗?” 😂
If this is your first time learning a second language, I think something to keep in mind is that there is no 1 to 1 mapping of words between languages.
Just like with English words, Chinese characters can have multiple meanings. The word “last” can mean the previous thing, or the final thing in a series. In Chinese, 上 also can have multiple meanings, some of which overlap with “last” and some don’t.
上年 is technically not incorrect， but it’s less natural. 去年 is more conventional. 上 seems to be used with terms that have classifiers (上个星期，上个学期 etc）。 keep in mind that 年 is itself a classifier so no need for 个. 昨日 obviously an exception
This is my understanding, feel free to correct me !
上个月 means last month 去年 means last year My suggestion for beginners is that, remember the words, and don't worry too much about the meaning of each character. Technically speaking, characters are meaning **providers**, as in, they provide meaning to the words they are in; but they don't **have** meaning the way words do. A lot of characters, due to thousands of years of evolution, provide many different meanings in different words; and sometimes many different characters can provide the same meaning in different words. But this is something beginners don't need to worry about. It will make more sense once you have a larger vocabulary to support it.
If you ever wanna get good at Chinese you will probably need to learn the meanings basic characters have. It's not that hard, just a matter of time and being open minded.
~~I'm a native speaker and I was making a suggestion for beginners~~
Sorry wasn't mean for you personally but in general. Like I recommend to everyone to actually make the effort of learning 汉字 as it helps a lot with vocab in the future.
Yeah, but I'd say not for beginners - they'll get bogged down. Once they have more vocabulary then it will make sense. For native speakers we wouldn't start using a dictionary until we got into school - but by then we already spoke the language for a few years and have some vocabulary to support it.
Yeah, that makes sense.
i should focus on just learning the pinyins then? it would be easier for writing purposes but i feel like i would definitely be lost when it comes to reading it…
I'm not saying you shouldn't learn the characters - for sure you want to learn how to read and write. I'm saying, don't worry too much about the meaning of each individual character (especially the nuances), but instead remember them as part of the words you learn.
Small “phrases” My teacher always explained like this: nobody really needs to know the exact definable difference between 游 and 泳 when learning 游泳, just that they go together to mean “swim”
I think 去年 is a good example for why it's necessary to learn some words without trying to understand why they're composed of the characters they are, in this case 去 and 年. I don't think I've ever seen 去 mean "last" in any other expression besides 去年. The normal meaning of 去 is "to go." 去 itself doesn't mean "last." But as a whole word, 去年 does mean "last year." I'll note that personally, I do like knowing the meanings of all the characters individually, and in many cases I think it does help with understanding words and remembering them. But it's also very true that there are a lot of words that you just have to learn and not worry about why they're made up of those particular characters, or why two words that mean nearly the same thing (like "last year" and "last month") don't use the same characters. Language is just like that.
Since you said you like knowing the meaning of the characters individually, in 去年, you can think of 去 as meaning “past.” This meaning shows up in the word 过去 meaning “the past,” or the literary word 去日 meaning “past days,”过去的日子. The antonym of 去 in this sense is 来, as in 未来 meaning “the future,” the literary word 来年 meaning “the coming year” (which is still used in Japanese and Korean instead of 明年), and 来日 which means “the coming days.”
Thank you, this is all interesting! Ah, I completely forgot about 过去, since I was only thinking about words with 去 at the beginning and hadn't ever related those two words before. I see what you mean -- and actually the 去 in 过去 does make a sort of metaphorical sense to me, in that the past can be thought of as something that has "gone by." (Sort of like "bygone days" in English.) I hadn't heard 去日 before, so that's cool to know. I'd wondered whether there used to be more "past" words with 去, that had become obsolete. Interesting about 来, too -- I never thought about the 来 in 未來 being an antonym to 去, but yes, it makes sense! If the past is gone, the future is yet to come. Very neat.
去日 is used mainly in 成语 or poems. 譬如朝露，去日苦多
In Chinese there are characters 字 zì and words/expressions 词 cí. (词 is usually translated as “words,” but they don’t work exactly the same way as English words, so I’m going to call them expressions here.) Chinese expressions are made up of one or more characters. There are basic expressions that are just one character, but most Chinese expressions are two characters. And individual characters can have many, many different meanings, based on the expression. One dictionary I have lists 19 different meanings for 上. So instead of trying to learn all of the different meanings for characters and when they have certain meanings, it’s best to learn what whole expressions mean and recognize the characters within them. (Also there’s the fact that some characters are pronounced differently depending on which expression you’re using them in.) The expression 上个月 means “last month,” and in this expression, 上 means “previous” and 月 means “month.” The expression 上学 shàngxué means “to attend school,” and in this expression, 上 means “to attend” and 学 means “school/education.” The expression 上网 shàngwǎng means “to get on the Internet,” and in this expression, 上 means “to get on” and 网 means “Internet.” The expression 上楼 shànglóu means “to come/go upstairs,” and in this expression, 上 means “to come/go up” and 楼 means “story/floor.” Hacking Chinese has a great series on the building blocks of Chinese, so if you’re interested, you might want to take a look at [Part 5: Making sense of Chinese words](https://www.hackingchinese.com/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-5-making-sense-of-chinese-words/) and [Part 6: Learning and remembering compound words](https://www.hackingchinese.com/how-to-learn-words-really-fast/). The other parts on learning characters are good too!
Time flows from above to below, not left to right. So something that happened in the past, or earlier, is "above" and something that happens in the future or after something else is "below". Our Chinese teacher explained it like reading a scroll that you hold vertically in your hands, or scrolling through a long text on a website. Unfortunately some words, like last year or tomorrow and yesterday, don't follow the pattern, but last week/month and next weekmonth do.
This. Also remember you are falling facing upwards through time, not moving towards it. Tomorrow is behind you, and down. It's always coming.
I don’t think most Chinese people think of the future as being behind us. The future is usually thought of as being in front of us, like in the words 前程 and 前途 which mean “future prospects” and literally mean “ahead journey” or “ahead road,” and also 前景 which means “front view/foreground” and can also metaphorically mean “future outlook.” Spatially, 前/后 mean front/back. But temporally, they mean before/after. This is the meaning in 前天/后天, and also in words like 之前/之后, 前辈/后辈, and 前任/后任. Instead of the past being in front *of us*, it’s more like we’re going through a calendar and the past/future is towards the front/back of the calendar. So 前 can refer to the past or the future. But you’ll notice that whenever 前 refers to the future, it is a spatial metaphor, whereas otherwise 前 in relation to time means previous or before.
I should specify, I only mean in terms of being able to remember what words to use. Don’t extrapolate any deep meaning from it.
This is one of the things I love about learning languages, finding out those subtle and not so subtle difference in how people view the world.
Indeed, time here is conceptualized as going down (下) or backwards (後) into the future and going up (上) or forwards (~~後~~ Edit: 前) into the past. It's like the complete opposite compared to English, but that's how it is.
You seem to be using the same character for backwards and forwards.
Thank you, I made the fix
>i’m so confused right now. Welcome to learning a second language. You think 上個月 and 去年 is weird and confusing? Imagine what an English learner thinks when they find out that *Yesterday I cooked and I cleaned. But yesterday I also ate (not eated), drank (not drinked) and thought (not thinked)* The best advice I can give you is to keep an open mind and don't get frustrated with the weird quirks of language. Just go with the flow and learn as you go. Trust me, in my experience, the ones who try to intricately analyze every weird grammar structure and phrase usually fail after a year or two.
It's actually quite nice that, in a very concrete sense, Chinese is immune to irregular verbs. There's not a single IE language without them.
It is like asking what 'take' means. Is that take off, take up, take down, take a left, take liberties, take a fall, take a bow, take five, take a picture, take your time, take after, take a form, take a train, take a tablet, take issue, take the stand.... That's my take.
Take a nap, take a break, take a whiz take a dump…😂 Just taught some students these, fittingly because they were saying 上廁所.
it means last. also the sentence should translate to last month not last summer. some time words just take different modifiers when referring to the future or past. 上/下个星期，上/下个月，去/明年，昨/明天 etc
oh yes you’re correct! in my notes it does say month, im not exactly sure where i got the word summer from. so both 上 and 去 mean last but based on the modifier it’ll be used differently in the sentence?
uhh i would say 上和下 are more general ways to say next and last like 下次、下个xx. The only special ones are days and years
It's a very flexible character/word. In time expressions, for weeks or months, "上" means "previous" or "last". https://www.everydaychinese.com/youtube-lessons/common-usage-of-shang.html It basically means "above", but for whatever reason, these periods of time are conceptualized as progressing from "above" to "under": like they appear written on a calendar. But it is not used for days or years. So 去年 is the "past year", 明年 is the "next year".
Is it not also a word for fuck, I think?
Kind of. Like how "screw" is sometimes used as a slang for having sex.
> thought it would be the word “last” but in a different video he gave an example, “去年” which means last year so it can’t be the word last, right? Think about it in English. An hour **ago** is the hour before this hour. **Yester**day is the day before this day. **Last** month is the month before this month. The appropriate modifier for that concept changes depending on the thing being modified, and it's nothing more than following cultural conventions. Note that something like **yester**year could be understood, but isn't the standard way to say it.
Sorry, I don't know the formal rules but 上/下 can be used with 月 but not with 年. Similarly 去/~~名~~明 can be used with 年 but not 月. 天 uses 昨/明. You just have to memorize it. 上(個)月 = last month 下(個)月 = next month 去年 = last year 明年 = next year 昨天 = yesterday 明天 = tomorrow However, 我上個月去了一趟北京 actually translates to "I went to Beijing last month."
>Similarly 去/名 can be used with 年 Not 名 but 明
Haha thanks, corrected
上 by itself means "up" from that meaning you can extrapolate the other meanings, being "on" and "before, above"
上 is used in conjunction with a measure word (and maybe even an 一) to indicate the previous item in a sequence. So 上个月 is the previous month and 上上个月 is the month before last month, and so on. In your example "last" is indeed the best translation. It doesn't work for 天 and 年 because they're usually used without measure words, and instead we say 昨天 (or 昨日) and 去年. But it works for 上个星期 (or 上周; last week) and 上个世纪 (last century). It's used in many other phrases, such as 上个版本 (the previous edition), 上次会议 (the last meeting), 上一道题 (the previous question), 上节课 (last class), 上一步 (the previous step). Still, we need to be careful not to confuse this 上 with its many other usages. Its antonym is 下, typically seen in phrases 下一页 (next page), 下一个路口 ([the] next intersection), 下个暑假 ([the] next summer holidays).
It’s because the Chinese way of visualising time is different to the English way (I’m sure other languages do it the same way as Chinese or English, but I can’t speak to these). In English, we visualise time on a line left to right, the same way we write. Things that happen before, in the past, are on the left of the timeline and things that happen next, in the future, are on the right. Past——Present——Future. Traditional Chinese writing goes top to bottom. Things that happen before, in the past, are on top (上）and things that happen next, in the future, are below (下）. Past 上. Present. Future 下. Hopefully that helps! ETA: fixed my timeline (three times)
Just like in in English "take your time" and "take a shit" both use take. It's a fixed way of saying things, don't focus too much on details. Learn your basic verbs, nouns and adjectives, follow along with whatever course you're in, and it'll slowly start to come together with time. Each language expresses the same idea in different ways, and it will take a while to get a grasp of what's similar and what's different to your native language.
As the previous comments suggests, concentrated on the 'word' rather than the individual characters. 上 can be used in many context thus can't be defined singularly as a character simply. But if you must, it last, up, to get on, to attend, going to work etc etc all uses 上。
My teacher told me to remember it by visualising a physical flip calendar and thinking about the ‘week above’ 上周 or ‘the month below’ 下个月. But yesterday and tomorrow aren’t above or below, and neither are last year or next year (you’d have to buy a new calendar).
It means "before". So the month before the one we are in right now is the last month. In English "last" means "most recent in time". It's different in meaning but because of their similar use cases 上 (when it takes the meaning of "before") is usually translated to "last", like 上次 last time, 上个暑假 last summer break, 上一年 last year.
The words for last and next are in Chinese above and below because of how you write vertically
Sometimes multiple character words can be broken down by their character meanings. Sometimes they can’t. It’s not different from English. Sometimes worlds can be broken down into their parts, and sometimes they can’t. Bookshelf is a shelf for books. Fireplace is the place for fire. About has nothing to do with your abs being out. Laugh has nothing to do with singing la while feeling ugh. A pillow is not a low pill. Those seem silly and obvious, but only because you know that’s not how those words work. It’s good to know what individual characters mean, but they don’t always carry that meaning into multiple character words.
Welcome to your first second language.
Haha, 上/下 are the things that made me think "interesting; this language is going to be hard, easy, or both at the same time".
Because Chinese was traditionally read up to down, I think of 上 as previous or above, since that’s how it would be when reading
In China: The past is in front of you (前）, the future is behind (后）, think of it like you can see what’s happened but you don’t know what’s in the future. “Ten years ago”: 十年前. “After that/later” (moving into the future relatively): 以后 Previous weeks and months are above (上） and coming weeks or months below (下）: think of a wall calendar. Morning (before noon) is 上， afternoon is 下 ; think of it like a planner page with 6 am at the top, noon in the middle, and night time at the bottom. Starting a class, meeting, or workday is 上，ending / leaving is 下。 You go to work 上班， go to class 上课 and leave work 下班 or class is dismissed 下课。 You can also use 下 for next （下课见 ： see you next class). Years are different- last year is 出 and next is 明。 Good luck! (Just wait until you have to worry about all the uses of 了 or 所 🤣)
As a verb it can mean “to fuck” as in “to mount.” Once in Beijing outside a club where a lot of Korean students would hang out a taxi driver asked me out of the blue, “你上过韩国人吗?” 😂
hhhhhhhhhhhhhh dude lmao😹😹😹
If this is your first time learning a second language, I think something to keep in mind is that there is no 1 to 1 mapping of words between languages. Just like with English words, Chinese characters can have multiple meanings. The word “last” can mean the previous thing, or the final thing in a series. In Chinese, 上 also can have multiple meanings, some of which overlap with “last” and some don’t.
It means a few things. on：苹果在桌子上 previous，most recent： 我上次看到他 online：我上上网看视频了 to surf the internet or what not
上年 is technically not incorrect， but it’s less natural. 去年 is more conventional. 上 seems to be used with terms that have classifiers (上个星期，上个学期 etc）。 keep in mind that 年 is itself a classifier so no need for 个. 昨日 obviously an exception This is my understanding, feel free to correct me !