16.1 Time Expressions I (Week)

Audio is not available for this page yet.

We use the following structure to mean ‘last week, this week, next week, etc.’.

上上 soeng6 soeng6 (‘last last’, literally ‘up up’)	個 go3 (Classifier)	星期 sing1 kei4 (‘week’) 禮拜 lai5 baai3 (‘week’, more colloquial)
上 soeng6 (‘last’, literally ‘up’)
今 gam1 (‘this’, literally ‘now’) 呢 ni1 / nei1 (‘this’)
下 haa6 (‘next’, literally ‘down’)
下下 haa6 haa6 (‘next next’, literally ‘down down’)

Below are the possible combinations. We can optionally omit the classifier 個 go3 when we use 上 soeng6 or 下 haa6 with 星期 sing1 kei4.

1.	上上(個)星期	soeng6 soeng6 (go3) sing1 kei4	last last week
1.	上上個禮拜	soeng6 soeng6 go3 lai5 baai3	last last week
2.	上(個)星期	soeng6 (go3) sing1 kei4	last week
2.	上個禮拜	soeng6 go3 lai5 baai3	last week
3.	今個星期	gam1 go3 sing1 kei4	this week
	今個禮拜	gam1 go3 lai5 baai3
	呢個星期	ni1 go3 sing1 kei4
		nei1 go3 sing1 kei4
	呢個禮拜	ni1 go3 lai5 baai3
		nei1 go3 lai5 baai3
4.	下(個)星期	haa6 (go3) sing1 kei4	next week
4.	下個禮拜	haa6 go3 lai5 baai3	next week
5.	下下(個)星期	haa6 haa6 (go3) sing1 kei4	next next week
5.	下下個禮拜	haa6 haa6 go3 lai5 baai3	next next week

We put a time expression before the verb we want to modify.

我下星期去日本。
ngo5 haa6 sing1 kei4 heoi3 jat6 bun2.
I will go to Japan next week.
The time expression 下星期 haa6 sing1 kei4 (‘next week’) is put before the verb 去 heoi3 (‘to go’).