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One may put adverbs in English at the beginning of the sentence. For example:

  1. Yesterday, I went to the library and borrowed a much-needed book.
  2. I went to the library and borrowed a much-needed book yesterday.

What difference does the position of the adverb "yesterday" make?

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    "...and borrowed a much-needed book" (do you have to pay to borrow library books where you live?). The first emphasises that it's what you did yesterday, the second emphasises the action and mentions when it happened as an afterthought.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 18 at 14:27
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    Almost no difference.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Jul 18 at 14:27
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    This question is similar to: Where to place yesterday. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 18 at 15:01
  • Tangent: We do not say you "hired a book". As libraries normally give you a book for free but you have to bring it back, we say "I BORROWED a book from the library." If you got the book at a bookstore where you had to pay for it but now you can keep it forever, we say, "I BOUGHT a book at the bookstore". "Hired" is mostly used to talk about people, like, "The company hired a new accountant." It is sometimes used when you pay to use something for a period of time, you could also say, "I HIRED a tractor for a week". But in most if not all cases, it's more common to say, "I rented ..."
    – Jay
    Commented Jul 18 at 15:43

2 Answers 2

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The placement of the adverb "yesterday" in English sentences affects emphasis and clarity. When "yesterday" is at the beginning (like in "Yesterday, I went to the library and hired a much-needed book"), it emphasizes the timeframe right away. Placing it at the end (as in "I went to the library and hired a much-needed book yesterday") emphasizes the main action first and adds the timeframe afterward. Both ways tell us the action happened the day before today, but the placement changes which part of the sentence gets more focus. Overall, there isn't much of a difference, and both are used widely and it doesn't matter which one you use.

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People often include irrelevant or tangential info in conversation, but if you put "yesterday" at the head of the sentence, the listener will expect yesterday to be more than a "throw-away" fact and expect some relevance to the story-in-miniature you're telling. They might expect the story to have something to do with what happened to you yesterday. Or questions might pop into their mind: Why, if you needed it so badly, did you delay until yesterday?

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