Today I Make Your Head Explode: 今
February 22nd, 2009 | View Comments
今日わ日本語勉強します。
Kyō wa Nihongo benkyō shimasu.
“Today I am studying Japanese.” I hope. Otherwise, it’s the next edition of Unintentional Multilingual Self-Humiliation.
And today, 今 is making my head explode. In both Chinese and Japanese, 今 means roughly “the present”.
According to Nihongo Resources, Lesson 1 今 can be pronounced as いま (ima), which means “now” or as こん (kon) like in 今晩 (konban) — “this evening” or 今日 (konnichi), “this day”. This is obviously related to 今晩は (konbanwa) and 今日は (konnichiwa) — “good evening” and “good day”.
But here the plot thickens. “Good evening” and “good day” are more commonly written as こんばんは and こんいちは, without the Kanji. So when you see 今日, it is probably pronounced kyō— and means “today”.
“This morning” is 今朝 or けさ (kesa). “Morning” is 朝 (asa), and “good morning” is おはよございます (ohayo gozaimasu).
It makes the Chinese seem positively simple in comparison. 今 (jin1) has only one pronunciation.
On the other hand, in Chinese 今朝 doesn’t mean “this morning”. 今朝, along with 今日 and 今天 all mean “today”.
Interference. I haz it.
Yvonne posted this on February 22nd, 2009 @ 7:02pm in Chinese, Japanese, Vocabulary | Permalink to "Today I Make Your Head Explode: 今"
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American-born Taiwanese girl who married a Japanese guy. And who forgot about six years' of Spanish grammar and most of the vocab.
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