King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Japanese symbol for “contemporary”

Romaji: gendai
present age; present day; contemporary; today

In Japanese, contemporary is , read (gendai).

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Meanings

  1. adj-no, n present age; present day; contemporary; today
  2. adj-no, n modern era; modern times; contemporary era

Kanji and stroke order

present, existing, actual
on: ゲン
kun: あらわ.れる、あらわ.す、うつつ、うつ.つ
11 strokes · JLPT 2
substitute, change, convert
on: ダイ、タイ
kun: か.わる、かわ.る、かわ.り、か.わり
5 strokes · JLPT 3

Other Japanese words for “contemporary”

WordReadingMeaning
どうき doukisame year (of graduation, entering a company, etc.); contemporary; classmate
いまふう imafuumodern; current; contemporary
コンテンポラリー kontenporariicontemporary
とうせいりゅう touseiryuumodern; contemporary

Related words

Words that share a kanji.

WordReadingMeaning
げんざい genzaithe present; present time; now
あらわれ arawareembodiment; manifestation; materialization
げんじつ genjitsureality; actuality; hard fact
ひょうげん hyougenexpression; representation; description
げんば genbaactual spot; scene (of a crime, accident, etc.)
じだい jidaiperiod; epoch; era
だいひょう daihyourepresentation; representative; delegate
かわり kawarisubstitute; replacement; substituting

See also: Chinese symbol for “contemporary”.

Data: JMdict (CC BY-SA 4.0); KANJIDIC2 (CC BY-SA 4.0); KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.

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