Question

the year before可以换成last year吗

He had been to the village only once, the year before.

Answer 1

the year before放在句子中语法不正确，因为 the year before英文中没这个表达方式。last year比the year before表达更地道，更符合英美西方人表达方式习惯。

Answer 2

有人简直在扯蛋蛋，说什么“没这种说法，不符合欧美人的表达习惯。”这段文字是个加拿大人写的摩旅游记，也算得上是个欧美人吧：
We got to know our Finnish neighbours Jana and Janni a little bit. They come to Storfjord every summer and they said that the weather last year and the year before was beautiful and sunny. It's just that for some reason this year was very rainy. We both looked at the ground guiltily【因为他们自称雨神】...
很明显，不仅有the year before这种表达，有时候还得根据上下文才能判断究竟是哪一年。比如这里，前面有个last year，那就应该是前年。

Answer 3

可以，都是去年的意思

Answer 4

the year before可以以任意时间点为基准，比如对2000年来说就是1999年，而last year是以现在为基准，译为去年。

Answer 5

the year before前一年，是正确的英语，高三英文阅读文章里多次出现。