現代
げんだい · gendai · JLPT N3 · noun
present-day
📱🏙️ 現 present + 代 era = the present era; gendai ≈ gen-day, today's generation
現 means present or appearing, as in 現在 (now). 代 means generation or era, as in 時代 (period). Put together, 現代 is the era that is here now: present-day, modern times.
代 — person radical 亻 + 弋 (stake/dart, phonetic)
代 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 亻 (person) gives the meaning and 弋 supplies the sound. The original sense was one person taking the place of another, which broadened to 'substitute,' 'replace,' and then 'generation' or 'era' — successive groups of people replacing the previous.