Just as it’s easy to think ima has no kanji, it’s easy to believe iru has none, because people usually write it in hiragana. But you can also render iru as 居る. See, for example, this phrase:
間男が居ます。
Maotoko ga imasu.
There is an adulterer.
If we add 居間 (ima: living room) to that sentence, we create something close to a palindrome:
居間に間男が居ます。
Ima ni maotoko ga imasu.
There is an adulterer in the living room.
And as long as we’re talking about living rooms, I’ll mention a sentence I concocted early in my Japanese career (for the thrill of the repeating sounds):
今、居間に居ます。
Ima, ima ni imasu.
Now I’m in the living room.
As you can see, 今 (ima) means “now.” When I first created this sentence, I hadn’t quite nailed down particles, so I said it without the に (ni: in), and it sounded even better to me than it does now.
