yesterday
part of speech
adverb (yesterday); noun (yesterday — the day before today)
meaning for a pupil
1) Yesterday means on the day before today. tree →
2) Yesterday can mean the recent past in general: the toys of yesterday. tree →
3) "The day before yesterday" means two days ago. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths and time lessons, pupils work out days: if today is Tuesday, yesterday was Monday and tomorrow is Wednesday; calendar problems use «yesterday» and «the day before yesterday». In English grammar, «yesterday» signals the past tense: «I played yesterday», not «I play yesterday». In stories and diaries it tells the reader when events happened. Phrases: yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon, the day before yesterday, only yesterday.
examples
- Yesterday it rained all day. tree →
- I played football with my friends yesterday afternoon. tree →
- If today is Friday, yesterday was Thursday. tree →
- The day before yesterday was my birthday. tree →
- I didn't do my homework yesterday, so I'm doing it now. tree →
- It feels like only yesterday that we started school. tree →
- Yesterday's newspaper is on the table. tree →
- I was only made day before yesterday. tree →
note
Use a past tense with yesterday: «I went yesterday», not «I go yesterday». Say «yesterday morning», not «yesterday in the morning» or «last morning». But: «last night», not «yesterday night» (though people understand it). Maths: yesterday is today minus one day; the day before yesterday is minus two.
In the corpora
- Listen for tones: zuó rising is in zuótiān, yesterday, but zuò falling is "sit" or "do".
- "zuótiān" means yesterday; zuó rises, while zuò (falling) means to sit or to do.
- Time words such as yesterday, now and tomorrow must agree with the tense of the verb.
- If I mess up, I'll tell you.» A month later: «I had one yesterday.
- J'ai eu dix ans hier ! means "I turned ten yesterday!"; learn it as a set birthday phrase.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «yesterday» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.