前
qián HSK1

in front

前 qián
before prepositionlocative
(bound form) ago; before; earlier; previously

他走前对你说什么了？

tā zǒu qián duì nǐ shuō shén​me le?

What did he say to you before he left?

离家前上网查一下。

lí jiā qián shàng wǎng chá yī​xià.

Check the Internet before leaving home.

front locativenoun
(bound form) front; forward; ahead; facing direction. Use 前边 qián​bian or 前面 qián​miàn for the standalone noun.

我在电视前睡着了。

wǒ zài diàn​shì qián shuì zháo le.

I fell asleep in front of the TV.

他们看着他走到自己的车前。

tā​men kàn zhe tā zǒu dào zì​jǐ de chē qián.

They watched him walk to his car.

to move forward verb
(bound form) to advance; to proceed; to move forward.
former adjective
(bound form) previous; ex-; former. Used for people or positions held previously.

我是他的前教练。

wǒ shì tā de qián jiào​liàn.

I'm his former coach.

first adjectivenumeral
(bound form) first; preceding; top; leading. Used for ranks, lists, or the initial part of a sequence.

他们甚至排不进前十。

tā​men shèn​zhì pái bu jìn qián shí.

They didn't even make the top ten.

这是故事的前半部分。

zhè shì gù​shi de qián bàn bù​fen.

This is the first half of the story.

future noun
(bound form) future; prospects; ahead. Used in words describing what is to come.
abbreviation for the day before yesterday
(colloquial) abbreviation for the day before yesterday. Used in speech or informal writing.
surname
a Chinese surname
historical
(bound form) used before names of eras or dynasties to indicate an earlier period, such as BC or the Former Han dynasty

Cross-References

Same as

Abbreviation of

Antonym

Frequency
Character
Written text
93rd most common 1971.2 per million
Movie subtitles
109th most common 1606.2 per million appears in 100% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
763.5 per million appears in 92% of films
Written text
987.4 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 1
HSK 3.0
Level 1
Strokes
9
Unicode
U+524D

Sources
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)