今天

今天 (jīntiān) means 'today' — literally 'present day' (今 'now/present' + 天 'day'). It functions as a time noun, not an adverb, so it goes before the verb or at the start of the sentence, not after the verb: 今天我很忙 or 我今天很忙, never 我很忙今天. Because Chinese verbs do not conjugate for tense, 今天 (along with words like 昨天 'yesterday' and 明天 'tomorrow') often does the work English uses tense for: 我今天去 means 'I'm going today.' 今天 also commonly opens conversations about the date or weather: 今天几号? (What's the date?

), 今天天气怎么样? (How's the weather today?). The form 今儿 (jīnr) is Beijing-colloquial; 本日 is formal/written and rare.