天 vs 日
So, I was learning the days of the week, and found that Sunday can be either 星期天 or 星期日. I did some more digging on writtenchinese.com, because the character 日 is used in Japanese extensively for things to do with days of the week and month, as well as in the words for today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc. I found on the site that In addition to 今天 being used for today, that 今日 also means today in Chinese. Similarly, writtenchinese.com also has 昨日 and 明日. Are these terms used at all in spoken and/or written Chinese, and if so, how frequently are they used compared to 今天，昨天， and 明天?

Question

天 vs 日
So, I was learning the days of the week, and found that Sunday can be either 星期天 or 星期日. I did some more digging on writtenchinese.com, because the character 日 is used in Japanese extensively for things to do with days of the week and month, as well as in the words for today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc. I found on the site that In addition to 今天 being used for today, that 今日 also means today in Chinese. Similarly, writtenchinese.com also has 昨日 and 明日. Are these terms used at all in spoken and/or written Chinese, and if so, how frequently are they used compared to 今天， 昨天， and 明天?

Answer

As I see, they are all available in writen and spoken Chinese , but 昨日/今日/明日would be a bit more formal. I think it varies from place to place. As a cantonese, people here prefer to 今日/昨日/明日 in spoken Chinese(our dialects) .

Answer

日 is more like a written form, and 天 is oral. btw, in many case, 1) the forms used in modern japanese and korean usually would be old forms in chinese, because they were borrowed in the ancient time; 2) generally, those old forms are used as written forms in modern chinese. (if they're still used for the same meaning)

Answer

今天，昨天，明天 are commonly used in daily conversation. 
今日，昨日，明日 sound a bit poetic, formal and can be used in classical literature or written Chinese. You might be familiar with some Chinese idioms or classical poems like 今日事，今日毕。
明日复明日，明日何其多。
今日非昨日，昨日已可思。明日异今日，如何能勿悲。---王安石

However It would be funny if you replace 日 with 天 in these idioms or poems. Likewise, you would sound pretentious if you use 今/昨/明日 in spoken Chinese.

BTW, 星期日，星期天are both commonly used in spoken Chinese. 工作日 is the only way to say for working days.

希望对你有所帮助。

Answer

日 frequently used in written language and sounds more formal, 天 is frequently used in speaking language. Hope this will help.

Answer

日：比如说当我们到政府部门办证或盖章时，一般都要求“15个工作日来取”。用的都是“工作日”。
15个工作日，就是三周，折合成天数就是21天。而15天，就只有两周，一般只有10个工作日。
天：中华文化信仰体系的一个核心，狭义仅指与地相对的天。

Answers · 7

Still haven’t found your answers?

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn a language from the comfort of your own home. Browse our selection of experienced language tutors and enroll in your first lesson now!