263 / 308
ただいま tadaima
I'm home!
What does tadaima mean?
Called out the second you open the door. People say it to empty apartments and to cats, because a house without it feels a bit unfinished.
Example
ただいま、今日はけっこう疲れた。
I'm home — today really wore me out.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Safe to use Fine in ordinary conversation.
The story behind tadaima
Grammatically this is a sentence with its verb missing. The full form was tadaima kaerimashita, I have just now returned, and daily use kept the adverb, just now, while quietly dropping the part that carried the meaning. Nobody notices, because the two syllables now do all the work by themselves.
What they do is mark a threshold. Cross it and you are off duty. People call it out to dark apartments, to cats, to a house where nobody has answered okaeri for years, because saying it makes the room feel like a home rather than a place with your things in it. Screenwriters know this, which is why a returning character says tadaima and half the audience is instantly finished.
Get tadaima in your pocket
ただいま is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
