今日
Meaning in Englishtoday
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
今日 means 'today' — the current calendar day or the span of time around the present day; it functions as a temporal word used to locate actions and events in the immediate present and is commonly used to talk about plans, schedules, and news that concern this day.
Main meanings
- 1. As a time adverb placing an action within the present day rather than a past or future day.
- 2. As a temporal noun emphasizing the whole day as a unit (the events of this day).
- 3. In slightly different readings, used to convey the sense of 'nowadays' or 'these days' in literary or set expressions.
- 4. Appears in compound words and set phrases where its sense shifts slightly depending on formality or grammatical construction.
How to use it
Used across spoken and written Japanese to indicate the present day; common in casual conversation when stating plans or events, frequent in headlines and schedules for immediacy, and appears in formal contexts with alternative words; attaches to particles to mark time (for example as a topic or temporal adverb) and combines with verbs and nouns to form date-related phrases.
Variants and close terms
- 本日 (honjitsu) — formal, used in announcements and business settings for 'today'.
- こんにち (konnichi) — literary/formal variant often found in set phrases or greetings.
- けふ (kefu) — classical/historical pronunciation seen in older texts and poetry.
- 昨日 (kinou) — antonym 'yesterday'.
- 明日 (ashita) — antonym 'tomorrow'.
Composition
- 今 (ima) — now, the present moment or immediate time.
- 日 (hi/nichi) — day, the sun, or a calendar day.
- Together they form the notion of 'the present day' or 'today', combining immediacy with the unit of a day.
Origin
The compound appears in writings influenced by Classical Chinese and was adopted into Japanese usage by the Nara–Heian periods; its written form and sense as the present day stabilized through court documents, calendars and classical literature, later evolving in pronunciation and everyday usage into the modern common word for 'today'.
Word class
noun (名詞), temporal expression/time adverb (時を表す語)