A lot of English learners have a hard time with the two similar words contemporary and modern. Whether you choose the word contemporary or modern in your sentence will depend on the tense of your story. This is an oversimplification, but the difference is something like time differences. How can you know which one to use?
Modern means happening in the time near now
It is a word focused on now. The borders of modern are not definite, but it always is connected to know.
It is nice to live in modern times because we don’t need to work on a farm our whole lives.
= Modern is about the time between now and the industrial revolution.
In modern computers, the disc drive has been phased out.
= Modern is about the time between now and 5 years ago when we started using discs less.
Contemporary means happening at the same time as the other thing
It is a word focused on the time of your story. If it’s a past sentence, this is about the same time, the past. In the present, it’s the same time, the present. When you speak in the future tense, it is about the same time, the future.
It can also mean the people who lived or live at the same time.
Vincent Van Gogh was very creative compared to the contemporary artists.
= He was more creative than artists from his time.
In Ancient Greek times, contemporary technology helped them learn a lot about math.
= The technology was modern for the Greeks, but it is ancient for us.
In summary:
- modern: new for us; now
- contemporary: new for them; the same time as them
Modern is similar to now. Contemporary is now according to the people we are talking about.
Hopefully, that makes things clear for those who are confused of whether they should use contemporary or modern. If you misuse these words, someone might think you are a time traveler.
You can see more English explanations on my blog.
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Keep learning and modernizing your English skills!
