Example sentences
wǒ我qù去nián年zài在běi北jīng京。
I was in Beijing last year.
qù去nián年wǒ我mǎi买le了xīn新shǒu手jī机。
I bought a new phone last year.
About this word
去 is "to go, to depart" and 年 is "year", so 去年 is "the year that has gone". Chinese pairs the directions neatly: time that has left uses 去, time still coming uses 来, which is why 来年 survives as a literary "next year" next to 明年. 年 also stacks with 前 and 后 to reach further out, giving 前年, the year before last, and 后年, the year after next, and the same logic runs through 上个月 and 下个星期. It does not apply to months: there is no 去月, only 上个月.
The story behind the character
去
大 (a person) over 口 (here, a cave mouth). A person leaving the cave. That's 去. Xu Shen wrote 去, 人相违也. It meant "to leave," not "to go toward." So "我去北京" is literally "I leave here and go to Beijing."
年
A stalk of grain on top, a bent figure below. A person carrying the harvest. The crop only comes in once a year. Xu Shen wrote 年, 谷孰也: "the grain is ripe." "New Year" originally meant the grain ripened and it was time to celebrate the harvest.