Hiragana: Lesson 28 - ‘ふ’ [fu], ‘ぶ’ [bu] & ‘ぷ’ [pu]

ふ, in hiragana, or フ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The hiragana is made in four strokes, while the katakana in one. It represents the phoneme /hu͍/, although for phonological reasons, the actual pronunciation is 'fu'
, which is why it is romanized fu in Hepburn romanization instead of hu. Written with a dakuten (ぶ, ブ), they both represent a "bu" sound, and written with handakuten (ぷ, プ) they both represent a pu sound.
The katakana フ is frequently combined with other vowels to represent sounds in foreign words. For example, the word "file" is written in Japanese as ファイル (fairu), with ファ representing a non-native sound, fa.
In the Ainu language the katakana with a handakuten プ can be written as a small ㇷ゚ to represent a final p sound. In the Sakhalin dialect, フ without a handakuten can be written as small ㇷ to represent a final h sound after an u sound (ウㇷ uh). ^(Wikipedia)

Pronunciation:
‘ふ’ is romanized (pronounced) ‘fu’.

Words with ‘ふ’:
‘ふ’ at the beginning:

• 不安 / ふあん (fuan -> anxiety)
• 不思議 / ふしぎ (fushigi -> miracle; wonder)
• 船 / ふね (fune -> ship)
• 布団 / ふとん (futon -> bedding; floor bedding)
• 冬 / ふゆ (fuyu -> winter)
• 振り返る / ふりかえる (furikaeru -> look back)

‘ふ’ in the middle:

• 溢れる / あふれる (afureru -> overflow)
• 重複 / ちょうふく (choufuku -> overlapping; duplication; redudancy)
• 禍福 / かふく (kafuku -> weal and woe)
• 空腹 / くうふく (kuufuku -> hunger)
• 夜更け / よふけ (yofuke -> late at night)
• 裕福 / ゆうふく (yufuku -> wealth; affluence; prosperity)

‘ふ’ at the end:

• 祖父 / そふ (sofu -> grandpa)
• 塗布 / とふ (tofu -> application)
• 養父 / ようふ (youfu -> step father)
• 回付 / かいふ (kaifu -> circulated)
• 毛布 / もうふ (moufu -> blanket)
• 政府 / せいふ )seifu - goverment)

Stroke order:

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Dakuten
The character ‘ふ’ may also be combined with a dakuten, changing it into ‘ぶ’ in hiragana, and ‘bu’ in Hepburn romanization. With the dakuten added the pronunciation is changed, to ‘bu’. ふ + " (dakuten) = ぶ (look below)


Pronunciation:
‘ぶ’ is romanized (pronounced) 'bu' as in 'bull'.

Words with ‘ぷ’:
‘ぶ’ at the beginning:

• 武道 / ぶどう (budou -> grape)
• ぶしょう (bushou -> lazy)
• 豚 / ぶた (buta -> pig)
• ぶつける (butsukeru -> hit; bump)
• ぶつかる (butsukaru -> collide; strike)
• 文化 / ぶんか (bunka -> culture)

‘ぶ’ in the middle:

• 自分 / じぶん (jibun -> self; related to oneself)
• 新聞 / しんぶん (shinbun -> newspaper)
• 油 / あぶら (abura -> oil)
• 歌舞伎 / かぶき (kabuki -> Kabuki; Japanese classical drama)
• 危ない / あぶない (abunai -> dangerous)
• 動物園 / どうぶつえん (doubutsuen -> zoo)

‘ぶ’ at the end:

• 呼ぶ / よぶ (yobu -> call; call out)
• 選ぶ / えらぶ -> (erabu -> choose)
• 株 / かぶ (kabu -> share; stock; Ltd. )
• 内部 / ないぶ (naibu -> inside; internal)
• 遊ぶ / あそぶ (asobu -> play)

______________Handakuten
The character ‘ふ’ may also be combined with a handakuten, changing it into ‘ぷ’ in hiragana, and ‘pu’ in Hepburn romanization. With the handakuten added the pronunciation is changed, to ‘pu’. Remember it well. ふ + " (handakuten) = ぶ (look below)


Words with ‘ぷ’:
‘ぷ’ at the beginning:

• ぷんぷん (punpun -> pervaded)
• ぷんぷん (punpun -> intense smell)

‘ぷ’ in the middle:

• 一分 / いっぷん (ippun -> a minute)
• 感服 / かんぷく (kanpuki -> admiration; astonishment)
• てんぷら (tenpura -> tempura)
• 扇風機 / せんぷうき (senpuuki -> electric fan)
• 殺風景 / さっぷけい (sappukei -> dreary; tasteless)

‘ぷ’ at the end:

• 切符 / きっぷ (kippu -> ticket)
• 還付 / かんぷ (kanpu -> refund)
• 順風 / じゅんぷう (junpu -> fair wind)
• 産婦 / さんぷ (sanpu -> parturient woman)
• 分布 / ぶんぷ bunpu -> distribution; dispersion)

______________
Task: You shall write ‘ふ’ 50 - 100 times in your textbook. Memorize the shape, the stroke order, the sound, the pronunciation (echo the sound of the character each time you write it down), etc.
And after you've done that, write ‘は’, ‘ひ’, and ‘ふ’ one after each repetitively (は, ひ, ふ, は, ひ, ふ, は, ひ, ふ, etc.) 50 times (100 if you have time).

Thanks to Tna again for providing the examples!