Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Three time words you'll say every day — and three reasons to trust your ears over the kanji. 昨日 (kinō, yesterday), 今日 (kyō, today), and 明日 (ashita, tomorrow) are jukujikun: whole-word readings glued onto the characters, not built from them. 日 (day) anchors all three and also gives you 日本 (Nihon, Japan).

Don't try to sound these out: きのう/きょう/あした are memorised as units. 日 is the workhorse — ニチ in 日本, か/ひ for dates and days. 今 returns as いま (now) and 明 as あか.るい (bright), but here they live only inside the time trio.