先週
せんしゅう
senshuu
= last week
先週 (senshuu) is the go-to Japanese word for ‘last week’ — a compact, high-frequency time expression that anchors countless conversations about recent events, weekend plans that just passed, and weekly work updates.
先週 means ‘last week’ and, like other Japanese time words, doubles as both a noun and a temporal adverb. Placed before a verb, it simply locates an action in the previous week: 先週見た映画 (senshuu mita eiga, the movie I watched last week). With の it modifies nouns: 先週の会議 (senshuu no kaigi, last week’s meeting). The polar terms in this family are 今週 (konshuu, this week) and 来週 (raishuu, next week). In writing or formal speech, 先週 is standard across all registers — there is no stiff or casual alternate form the way 去年/昨年 differs.
The trickiest part of 先週 for learners is the reading of 先 as せん rather than さき. In standalone use 先 reads さき (as in 先に行く, saki ni iku, to go ahead), but in these time compounds — 先週, 先月 (sengetsu), 先日 (senjitsu, the other day) — it consistently reads せん. Memorizing 先週・先月・先日 as a set makes the せん reading feel automatic.
先 (sen/saki) carries the sense of ‘before’ or ‘ahead in time,’ and while its directional meaning can point either forward or backward depending on context (先 can mean ‘future’ in 先行き), in calendar compounds like 先週 and 先月 (sengetsu, last month) it consistently refers to the previous period. 週 (shuu, week) contains the road radical (辶) suggesting a cycle or circuit, echoing the seven-day loop of the week. Together 先週 = ‘the week before (this one).’
Everyday use
先週の金曜日に友達と居酒屋に行きました。
Senshuu no kin’youbi ni tomodachi to izakaya ni ikimashita.
I went to an izakaya with friends last Friday.
Formal / Cultural context
先週のプレゼン、お疲れ様でした。
Senshuu no purezen, otsukaresama deshita.
Great work on last week’s presentation.
Casual / Social Media
先週から筋トレ始めたんだけど、もう筋肉痛がやばい笑
Senshuu kara kintore hajimeta n da kedo, mou kinnikutsuu ga yabai w
I started working out last week and the muscle soreness is already intense lol
Weekly rhythms in Japan are shaped by the Monday-start work week and the culture of 週報 (shuuhou, weekly reports) common in Japanese companies. 先週 features heavily in these reports and in the Monday morning check-ins known as 朝礼 (choorei), where employees summarize 先週の進捗 (senshuu no shinchoku, last week’s progress) and outline 今週のタスク (konshuu no tasuku, this week’s tasks). The structured week-by-week review is so embedded in Japanese workplace culture that 先週 is among the highest-frequency time words in business Japanese.
In Japanese school culture, the week is also a natural unit of rhythm: weekly quizzes (週テスト, shuutesuto), weekly club activities, and the countdown to the weekend. Students and teachers alike use 先週 constantly when reviewing lessons or referencing events. Social media posts recapping a week’s activities, often tagged #先週 or #週まとめ (shuumatome, weekly recap), further cement 先週 as a word tied to the Japanese habit of weekly self-reflection and documentation.