Learn Hardcore Japanese: watasi ha kyou nani mo tabemasen.

Japanese frequently omits pronouns (I, you, he, she) when they are obvious from context. If it’s clear that you’re talking about yourself (for example, you’re talking about your own plans), 今日何も食べません is perfectly natural and probably more common than explicitly saying 私は….

You’d keep 私は if:

You want to contrast yourself with others:
私は今日何も食べませんが、妹はケーキを食べます。
I won’t eat anything today, but my younger sister will eat cake.
You’re stressing that it’s specifically you who won’t eat anything.

Why is 今日 (today) in the middle? Could I put it at the beginning or end?

Word order in Japanese is fairly flexible, especially for adverbs like 今日.

All of these are grammatical:

私は今日何も食べません。
今日は何も食べません。
今日、私は何も食べません。

They all mean roughly I’m not going to eat anything today, but the nuance shifts slightly:

私は今日何も食べません。
→ Topic is 私. You’re talking about your behavior, then specifying today.
今日は何も食べません。
→ Topic is 今日: As for today, (I) won’t eat anything. This focuses more on today as a special day.
今日、私は何も食べません。
→ Initially highlights today as the frame, then re‑introduces me; often used in slightly more explicit or contrastive contexts.

Putting 今日 at the very end, like 私は何も食べません今日, is unnatural. Adverbs of time usually go before the main verb phrase, not after it.

What is the difference between 私は今日何も食べません and 今日は何も食べません?

Both can translate as I won’t eat anything today, but they emphasize different topics:

私は今日何も食べません。
→ Topic: 私 (me).
You’re mainly talking about your actions. Good when contrasting people:
- 私は今日何も食べませんが、彼はたくさん食べます。
  I won’t eat anything today, but he will eat a lot.
今日は何も食べません。
→ Topic: 今日 (today).
You’re mainly talking about this day as special:
- Maybe you’re fasting today, or today you happen not to eat.

In normal conversation, 今日は何も食べません is extremely common and often feels more natural if the focus is just “today I won’t eat” rather than “I (as opposed to others) won’t eat”.

Why is it 何も with a negative? Why not 何か?

何か and 何も behave differently:

何か with a positive verb: something / anything
- 何か食べます。 – I’ll eat something.
何も with a negative verb: anything / nothing
- 何も食べません。 – I won’t eat anything / I will eat nothing.

何も is a negative polarity item: it usually appears together with a negative form like ～ない / ～ません.
You almost never see 何も with a positive verb in ordinary Japanese.

So:

何か食べません。 feels strange or unnatural.
何も食べません。 is the normal way to say I won’t eat anything / I will eat nothing.

Why doesn’t 何も take を? Why not 何もを食べません?

何もを食べません is ungrammatical.

With these Xも + negative patterns (like 何も, 誰も, どこも), the も-phrase works as a special kind of expression meaning not any X at all, and it does not take を in this structure:

何も食べません。 – I won’t eat anything.
誰も来ません。 – Nobody will come.
どこも行きません。 – I won’t go anywhere.

So the pattern is:

[interrogative word] + も + negative verb → no X / not any X

In 何も食べません, the idea of “object” is already built into the pattern 何も + 食べません, so adding を would be redundant and wrong.

Isn’t 何 just “what”? How does it suddenly mean “anything / nothing” here?

何 (なに) by itself is what (as a question word):

何を食べますか。 – What will you eat?

But when 何 combines with も and the verb is negative, the pattern changes its meaning:

何も + negative → anything / nothing
- 何も食べません。 – I won’t eat anything / I will eat nothing.

This is a common pattern with question words:

誰 – who
- 誰も来ません。 – Nobody will come.
どこ – where
- どこも行きません。 – I won’t go anywhere.

So 何 itself is “what”, but in the formula 何も + negative, it functions idiomatically as anything / nothing in English.

Does 食べません mean “do not eat” or “will not eat”? Is it present or future?

Japanese doesn’t split present and future the way English does. 食べません is the polite non‑past negative. Depending on context, it can mean:

Present / habitual: I don’t eat (X).
Future / planned: I won’t eat (X).

In 私は今日何も食べません, the presence of 今日 (today) makes it clearly about a specific time period, and in English we usually phrase that as future:

I’m not going to eat anything today.
I won’t eat anything today.

Grammatically, Japanese is just saying “I (do) not eat anything today,” and the time word 今日 carries the “today (this day)” meaning that English treats as near-future.

What is the difference between 食べません and 食べない?

They are the same in meaning (both are negative non‑past), but differ in politeness level:

食べません – polite form (ます form)
食べない – casual / plain form

So:

私は今日何も食べません。
→ Polite: used in most public situations, with strangers, at work, etc.
今日は何も食べない。
→ Casual: used with friends, family, people close to you, in inner monologue, etc.

The structure around the verb stays the same; you just swap 食べません ↔ 食べない depending on how polite you need to be.

Could this sentence mean “I don’t eat anything today (as a general habit)”?

In isolation, 私は今日何も食べません。 is normally understood as a specific plan or situation about today, not a timeless habit.

To express a general habit like “On (every) today / on days like today, I never eat anything,” you would normally add something to clarify:

私は、ダイエット中は何も食べません。
When I’m on a diet, I don’t eat anything.
私は、断食の日は何も食べません。
On fasting days, I don’t eat anything.

Without that kind of context, 今日 is taken as this particular day, so it’s read as:

I will not eat anything today (this day).

How do I say it in the past, like “I didn’t eat anything today”?

You just change the verb 食べません to its past negative form 食べませんでした (polite) or 食べなかった (casual).

Polite:
私は今日何も食べませんでした。
→ I didn’t eat anything today.
Casual:
今日は何も食べなかった。
→ I didn’t eat anything today.

Structure stays exactly the same; only the verb ending changes:

食べません → 食べませんでした (polite past negative)
食べない → 食べなかった (plain past negative)

How would I say “I hardly ate anything today” instead of “I didn’t eat anything”?

You can soften 何も (nothing/anything) by changing the wording around it:

Some natural options:

今日はあまり食べませんでした。
→ I didn’t eat much today.
今日はほとんど食べませんでした。
→ I hardly ate today / I almost didn’t eat.
今日はほとんど何も食べませんでした。
→ I hardly ate anything today.

あまり
- negative → not much
ほとんど
- negative → almost not / hardly

You usually wouldn’t literally say “hardly” by modifying 何も itself; instead, you use adverbs like あまり or ほとんど with the verb.

How do you read and pronounce this whole sentence?

The sentence 私は今日何も食べません。 is read:

わたしはきょうなにもたべません。
watashi wa kyō nani mo tabemasen.

Word by word:

私 – わたし (watashi)
は – wa (topic marker, written with the kana は but pronounced wa)
今日 – きょう (kyō)
何 – なに (nani)
も – も (mo)
食べません – たべません (tabemasen)

Rhythm-wise, it flows smoothly as:
わたしは｜きょう｜なにも｜たべません。