What are you doing なう?

November 16, 2009 12:32 AM by Rick Noelle

I recently used the word "nau" なう as a "phrase of the day" on Twitter. I said that it is a trendy word often used in Japanese tweets to refer to what a person is doing right "now." I had a request for some examples so I am posting them here.

Before the examples, I'd like to point out that I don't know how useful of a word なう is to the average student of Japanese. It is not something you would want to use in conversation and probably not something you would want to use in written Japanese either. I think the biggest value is simply knowing that it exists and being aware that it is very commonly used in Twitter. As I write this it is about 1:30 PM in Japan and I'm seeing about one use of なう per second. I used Twitter search to get this number.

The most common two uses I see of なう are to indicate where a person is or what a person is doing. Here are some actual examples from Twitter users.

Where A Person Is
@llpandall: 東京なう http://f.hatena.ne.jp/twitter2/20091116133300
"At Tokyo now."

@bonjin_p 新宿東口なう
"At Shinjuku east entrance now."

@kaduki_tomo 大学なう -in Lab-
"At college in the lab now."

@ko_no_tori 急にカレーが食いたくなったのでC&Cなう (Update Dec 6, 2009: I disabled the link. Looks like the user cancelled their Twitter account.)
"Suddenly got hungry for curry so I'm at C&C now." (Editor note: Looked up C&C, it's a curry shop http://www.res-keio.co.jp/c_and_c/)

What A Person Is Doing
@mofuku アキバのジョナサンで一人ランチなう。
"Having lunch by myself at Jonathan's in Akiba (Akihabara) now."

@srbook アリバイづくりなう
"Coming up with an alibi now." (Editor note: Ha ha..)

@seekingking ツイッター見てるなう
"Looking at Twitter now."

@maloreno うどん来た。昼飯なう。
"The udon arrived. Having lunch now."

These are just a few examples that I was able to collect very rapidly using Twitter search. It is pretty fun watching the uses of it fly by. Just as the word "now" is very flexible in English, it is also very flexible in Japanese. Where a person is or what they are doing are obviously not the only uses, just the ones I see most commonly.

Twitter is a valuable tool for studying everyday Japanese usage and for learning about the daily lives of Japanese people. I hope this explanation of なう will help further your studies.