先週

Pattern visualization

Examples

1. 先週は忙しかったです。▶ —
   Last week was busy.
2. 先週の金曜日に会いました。▶ —
   I met him last Friday.

Collocations

Mnemonic

せんしゅう — 先週, Sino-Japanese. Unpack the two kanji ── 先 (ahead, before) + 週 (week) = 'the week ahead'. A deep difference of time-metaphor hides here ── Korean 'jinanju' sees the past as 'that which has passed' = flowed away behind. Japanese and Chinese 先週 see the past with 先 (ahead) ── if you picture time as a river you wade up, what is already gone lies 'ahead' of you. A time family sharing 先 ── 先月 sengetsu (last month), 先輩 senpai (one who entered ahead of you = a senior). That 先 points not to 'the front of the future' but to 'the front of the past' ── inside one kanji, an East Asian sense of time sits fossilized. The Korean readings seon / ju are sister to the onyomi せん / しゅう.

Quick check

1. Why does 先 mark the past in Japanese/Chinese?

   • Time conceived as already-flowed-past = "ahead"
   • Frozen mistake
   • The kanji was inherently a past marker
   • Western tense influence