Hiragana HU or FU?

Posted on 19. Sep, 2009 @ 8:37 am by in Language Views: 2,586

I came across this video by Michichan in my Twitter feed this morning.

Great to find another Japanese enthusiast!

One correction for Japanese learners though, the ふ, though it is often romanized as either “fu” or “hu,” is not necessarily pronounced more like FU than it is HU.

Mount Fuji is always written with a FU and it likely sounds like FUji to Westerners.

Mount Fuji is a fabulous mountain and all, but I think it’s the source of ふ confusion for foreigners everywhere. Fuji sounds like FU-ji to me to this day! Really though, it is pronounce more like Huji. It’s a sound sort of between F and H.

Take a listen to this audio file from our Hiragana and Katakana apps spoken by a native speaker.

See how it is different than FU?

You can really get a handle on whether it’s FU or HU by thinking about other words that start with ふ. Most of them would sound strange if pronounced “FU.”

Think about these:
不思議 “hushigi” mysterious
風呂 “huro” bath
降る “huru” to fall (like rain)

Here’s one more example sentence from the Kansai-ben application pronounced slowly and at normal speed.

「普通が一番やで！」
“Futsuuga ichiban ya de!”
(Sort of like, ‘normal’ is best!, as in, I don’t need anything fancy.)

Here it is slower.

Got it?

The best way to get a feel for this is to listen to lots of Japanese! Eventually you’ll see that ふ isn’t quite FU, and similarly the ら、り、る、れ、ろ lines is not really RA RI RU RE RO, but it’s closer to an “L” – perhaps somewhere in between.

Once you get these things straight Japanese pronunciation isn’t so tough!

The ふ thing is really border line though – sometimes I feel that when Japanese get really excited and scream things like ふざけるな！They are really saying something closer to FU and not HU.

Anyone else have a take on this FU-HU dilemma?

- Harvey

  • Bobby

    There’s a historical basis for it. Originally, the consonant for that line was a ‘P’ sound. And as time went on (as people got lazier?) it got relaxed and turned into what we have today. So, we have the Japanese ふ being made by forcing air through a small space created by your two lips – the same as PU would be done, but without the burst of air at the beginning.

    Contrast that with the English FU, where the air is forced between the top lip and bottom teeth.

    Now, that doesn’t explain why the rest of the line got relaxed further into H sounds, and this one get left at a pseudo-F. I don’t know why that is.

  • Bobby

    And I’ll take this opportunity to point out that this is exactly the reason it doesn’t really matter which romanization scheme you use. People get into holy wars over Hepburn vs. Kunreisiki. Personally I prefer Kunreisiki, since it more closely matches Japanese morphology. It’s probably better for people learning the language. Hepburn more closely matches the pronunciation to an English speaker. Probably less confusing to the average person to write Fuji than Huzi.

    But the real point is that romanization is always an approximation at best. Kunreisiki doesn’t tell you it’s read like “who-zee” and more than Hepburn says that the F is the same as an English F sound.

    Better than people squabbling over which rough approximation is better, they should learn and start using kana. It won’t trick them into thinking that rough English approximations are actually accurate representations of the Japanese sounds (this is the other reason I prefer Kunreisiki – it tells you right up front that the English sounds are not accurate for Japanese).

    Basically, people should learn the kana quickly and stop worrying over romanization so much. I’ll get off my soap box now.

  • Katie

    Hmm, seems like more proof that early learners of Japanese like me should avoid romanisation altogether – or indeed trying to fit Japanese into Western sounds. I spend most of my learning Japanese in *watching* natives speak, and then I pronounce my hiragana/katakana lessons out loud while mimicking what I’ve seen. The brilliant things about Japanese TV is that they often run some relevant phrases or words on the screen while someone is speaking – especially in interviews.

    Some audio learning tools do make it necessary for me to use my bi-lingual dictionary, say when an elongation of a vowel like おう crops up and I can’t quite hear it. But HU and FU have never been issues – I just watch good quality videos to study people’s mouths closely. It’s still difficult for me to get the hang of, but hey it’s what folks who are born in Japan do!

    idk, It’s just less confusing for me than looking at kana as English letters

  • Katie

    Oh, and thank you for the backstory the kana Bobby – You don’t always get these things explained as you learn!

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    Bobby your comments are great thanks! I didn’t know the history behind the ふ pronunciation. Great stuff!

    Katie, I’m a total advocate of getting newbies off of romaji FAST. Glad to meet another believer!

    I recently got flamed for advocating that people learn the Kana before messing with grammar or anything else.

    Check this thread out to relive the burn.
    http://www.japannewbie.com/2009/08/03/do-you-know-your-kana/

  • http://www.fuzakeruna.com/blog Ady

    Regarding the Hu Fu debate, think you should check Tomo’s comment here. He is Da Man !

    http://bit.ly/rpMdh

  • http://www.japannewbie.com Harvey

    Thanks for the link Ady! That is a great comment – I follow Tomo on twitter and he always has interesting things to say. Good stuff!

  • http://www.flat3d.org John

    I think in learning ふ and other pronunciation differences between Japanese and English (or other languages for that matter) is really, as you said Harvey, about listening and learning to recognise the difference, then, crucially, listening to yourself and learning to mimic the sounds you are hearing. I think that this second stage is more difficult for many than the first. Some people can do it just by listening to their own voice as they talk, but some can’t and for that some recording and listening to how you are doing is a (often hateful but) valuable experience!

    I’d also say if at all possible don’t bother with romaji and go kana from outset. Learn the sounds with the characters to avoid pitfalls of associating own language sounds into the target language. You can see the same issues coming if you watch some Japanese learning English, there are often some that put katakana over the words and it makes learning good pronunciation a nightmare for them.

  • http://www.desk-egitim.com/index.php?ust=menu3&sol=menu3&orta=wat work and travel

    Is there any information about this subject in other languages?

JapanNewbie
    Twitter Feed

Welcome to JapanNewbie.com! My goal is to get you excited about Japan and the Japanese language. Love it! This blog has been around for more than five years now, so be sure to dig into the archives and use the search. You never know what you might find!

Recent Comments:




  • Photos on flickr