毎晩
まいばん
maiban
= every night / nightly
毎晩 (maiban) glues 毎 (every) to 晩 (evening/night), turning a single word into shorthand for a nightly routine — the kind of habit you’d mention when describing what you do before bed every single day.
毎晩 breaks down cleanly into 毎 (every, each) plus 晩 (evening, night). Like most words in the 毎〜 family, it works adverbially with no particle attached: you say maiban hon o yomu (毎晩本を読む, I read a book every night), not maiban ni. This puts it in the same set as 毎朝 (maiasa, every morning) and 毎日 (mainichi, every day) — together these three cover the daily cycle from morning to night. The nuance sits in 晩 itself: 晩 leans toward the evening-into-night stretch spent at home, the part of the day tied to 晩ご飯 (bangohan, dinner) and winding down, whereas 夜 (yoru, night) is the broader, more neutral word for nighttime in general. A more literary alternative, 毎夜 (maiyo), exists but reads as formal or poetic — 毎晩 is what people actually say.
Never insert a particle before the verb: 毎晩勉強する, not 毎晩に勉強する. Learn 毎晩 alongside its morning partner 毎朝 (maiasa) — the pair is often taught together since they mirror each other in form and grammar. Keep 晩 and 夜 straight: 晩 shows up in homey, evening-specific words like 晩ご飯 (dinner) and 今晩 (konban, tonight), while 夜 is the general word for night used in contexts like 夜中 (yonaka, the middle of the night). The 毎〜 pattern is productive, so once 毎晩 clicks, 毎週 (every week) and 毎年 (every year) follow the same logic. Finally, don’t reach for 毎夜 in casual speech — it sounds like something out of a novel, while 毎晩 is the everyday choice.
Everyday use
毎晩寝る前に歯を磨きます。
Maiban neru mae ni ha o migakimasu.
I brush my teeth every night before going to bed.
Casual / Social Media
最近、毎晩遅くまでゲームしてる。
Saikin, maiban osoku made gēmu shiteru.
Lately I’ve been gaming until late every night.
Formal / Cultural context
毎晩同じ時間に寝ると、よく眠れるようになりますよ。
Maiban onaji jikan ni neru to, yoku nemureru yō ni narimasu yo.
Going to bed at the same time every night will help you sleep better.
In many Japanese households, 毎晩 describes a fixed evening sequence rather than a vague idea of nighttime: 晩ご飯 (dinner) at a set hour, then お風呂 (a bath, often the deep soaking kind rather than a quick shower), then bed. Because 晩 itself carries this at-home, winding-down feel, saying something happens 毎晩 usually implies it’s folded into that same domestic rhythm — maiban ofuro ni hairu (taking a bath every night) sounds completely natural, tied to routine rather than a one-off event.
毎晩 is almost always mentioned in the same breath as its counterpart 毎朝, since Japanese daily-life small talk often frames a person’s day as a pair of bookends — what you do every morning and what you do every evening. This 毎朝/毎晩 pairing also reinforces why 晩 rather than 夜 is the natural partner here: 朝 (morning) and 晩 (evening) are both parts of the daily domestic cycle, while 夜 describes night as a stretch of time rather than a slot in your daily schedule.