JLPT N5 Kanji – 今 – kon, ima

This is 5-Minute Kanji, and today, we are going to go over a karate-kicking kanji: the kanji for now.

Mnemonic:

NOW, I’MA gonna KONnect this kick with your face.

Onyomi:

コン
kon

Kunyomi:

いま
ima

The onyomi is most often used to mean this for times. For example, you can say 今週こんしゅう, this week, or 今月こんげつ, this month.  There are other non-N5 words as well – 今度こんど, this time. An interesting word that does not have this meaning is 今後こんご, from now on.

The kunyomi, いま, is used to mean now and not really anywhere else.

There are numerous irregular readings for 今いま, though. You have the word for today, 今日きょう. Neither 今 or 日 use their regular readings. There is also 今朝けさ, this morning, that uses irregular readings, too. However, 今夜こんや, tonight, thankfully does use regular readings.

Mnemonic Factory

For imagery, it is a little difficult to think of an image that resembles the kanji. For me, it was easy to imagine someone doing a flying karate kick. The top two strokes are the roof of the dojo.
The top horizontal line is the fighter’s arm. The final arrow-like stroke is the fighter’s two legs. You could also imagine a river flowing at the bottom of a mountain. Although this really has nothing to do with the ‘now’ meaning. Maybe you can think of it as a reminder to be more mindful and in the now.

For onyomi, you can do a lot with コン. You have KON-man, KONfidence, KONnect, or KONtinue. You can also use it in the middle of words like defKON or with a Jamaican accent – ameriKON.

The kunyomi, うま, doesn’t have a lot of words in English that sound familiar to it. There is the famous actress Uma Thurman that you can use, but other than that, there are not a lot of options. You could use derivatives of human though: hUMAn, hUMAnitarian, etc…

Example Words

How about a few example words where this kanji is used?

Onyomi
The two most common words that use the onyomi are 今週こんしゅう and 今月こんげつ. 今週こんしゅう means this week, while 今月こんげつ means this month. Technically, こんにちは, as in ‘hello,’ can be written as 今日こんにちは. However, in practice, this rarely happens. The こんにち reading of 今日 can be used to describe these days or nowadays, like in the following sentence:

今日こんにちの技術ぎじゅつは、日々ひび進化しんかしています。
Today’s technology evolves every day.

This will NOT appear on the test, but it is good to know.

Kunyomi
As I said earlier, the いま reading is primarily used to refer to right now. You might see it in another compound 今時いまどき, which means nowadays. However, it is less common.

Irregular
This kanji happens to have numerous irregular readings that you should be careful about. There is 今日きょう for today. We also have this morning, 今朝けさ.

Commonly confused with

会 – meeting
天 – heavens
万 – ten thousand
令 – orders

Story Review

Can you remember the story from the beginning? Let’s give it a try and yell out the words that are missing.

___, ___ gonna ___nect this kick with your face.

Perfect? Let’s give it another try.

___, ___ gonna ___nect this kick with your face.

Word Review

Can you read these? I’ll give you the kanji and please yell out the reading for each word

今週

今月

今

今日

今朝

That’s it for the kanji for now. Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions. If you’d like to learn more kanji, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell mark to get a notification every time I send out a new video. Also, be sure to check out my other 5 Minute Kanji videos.

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