Now
February 21, 2010
by Nao
ima, kon, kin
The noun ima means now.
Being read kon and combined with other characters, it exactly means “this present.”
Let’s see some other words of this kind. Konya is tonight. Konshū is this week. Shū means a week. Kongetsu is this month. Kotoshi is this year. This word consists of today’s character and a year (toshi). It is not a misspelling but a special reading. A longer time span is Konseiki, meaning “this century.” Seiki means a century.
Kyō and konnichi are composed of the same characters but they have different meanings. The former is today; the latter, nowadays. Sakkon also means nowadays.
Other interesting expressions with this character are tadaima, imadoki, imasara, and imaichi.Tadaima means this moment or the greeting, “I’m home.” Imadoki means nowadays, by this moment, or the contemporary fashion with an implication of a slight obsoleteness or deviation. The sara of imasara is usually written in hiragana. Sara can be written in kanji and it means to revise or to change. Although these characters are likely to mean “to change now,” imasara implies that it’s too late to change. Imaichi implies a regretful result or lacking something small of a satisfactory condition.
- Draw the sweeping stroke from top to lower left.
- Draw the sweeping stroke from top to lower right.
- Draw the horizontal stroke.
- Draw the hook. Make it narrower gradually toward the end.
