Spanish word of the week: ahora

This week’s Spanish word of the week is ahora.

You can listen to the pronunciation of ahora the audio clip below:

Of course, you all know the adverb ahora in its basic meaning of now:

En Hanoi es por la mañana ahora. It’s morning in Hanoi now.

Ahora no tengo ganas de salir. I don’t feel like going out now.

now ahora o nunca now or never

¡Ahora me lo dices! Now you tell me!

But it’s also used in some phrases which it’s worth getting familiar with. If you want to say right now, the phrase to use is ahora mismo:

Ahora mismo no recuerdo. I can’t remember right now.

In restaurants or shops, you may hear:

Ahora mismo le atiendo. I’ll be with you right away.

There are some useful phrases about time which use ahora. First, when you want to say clearly how something must be in future, you can use de ahora en adelante, from now on:

De ahora en adelante lo haremos así. From now on we’ll do it like this.

Then, if something is only temporary or provisional, por ahora, for the moment, for now:

Es todo lo que quiere comentar, por ahora. That’s the only comment she wants to make for the moment.

Por ahora solo hay promesas. For the moment there are only promises.

Finally, when you need to talk about what’s happened so far, up till now, you use hasta ahora:

si las cosas van a seguir como hasta ahora if things carry on as they have so far

Come back next week to find out what our next Spanish word of the week will be!