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Are they interchangeable, or is 昨週 an old way to say it, and not used as much any more?
昨週レストランに友だちと行った。
If anybody knows any kind of nuances or differences, such as where one would be more appropriate, it would be interesting to know. Thank you very much!
昨週 is in a dictionary, but I have never heard the word. While 昨週レストランに友だちと行った is not necessarily incorrect, I think 先週 is the most natural word for any instance. It's also confirmed by search results in Google:
先週 24,800,000 results昨週 11,200 resultsThere are no difference between 先週 and 昨週 in meaning. 昨週 does not seem to be old-fashioned. It's just a rarely-used word.
昨 mean (the) last. 昨日 means 'yesterday,' 昨週 means 'last week.' 昨週 and 先週 is the same thing, but we seldom hear the former (昨週) these days. In written form, it looks natural. In colloquial form, it sounds too stylish and awkward. We say 昨年、昨夏、昨晩、likewise. 昨年 is common as well as 去年。 昨夏、昨晩 sound stylish and a bit outdated as compared with 去年の夏、昨日の夜 to me. But that's my personal opinion.
昨週, reads saku-shuu, is a noun. It's simply not used in the language, even if it can be translated as "last week" as 先週, reads sen-shuu, which is an adverb. The kanji 昨 is used to say "yesterday" though, in the word 昨日, reads kinou. When you are talking about somebody you pay your respect to and/or you like to be more polite to the person your are speaking to, you read 昨日 as saku-jitsu.
