bu / ぶ
The middle of the B row — ふ with two tiny ticks (゛) becomes 'bu'. Anchors culture, pigs, and verbs of motion like 'fly' and 'play'.
Pronunciation
The character ぶ represents the syllable 'bu', a soft 'b' followed by 'u'. It is ふ with the dakuten that voices 'h' to 'b'.
ぶ is ふ (fu) plus the dakuten ゛. It appears in 文化 (bunka, "culture"), 文学 (bungaku, "literature"), 豚 (buta, "pig"), 部分 (bubun, "part / portion"), 部下 (buka, "subordinate"). It's also the dictionary-form ending of a small but useful family of -bu verbs: 遊ぶ (asobu, "to play"), 飛ぶ (tobu, "to fly / jump"), 呼ぶ (yobu, "to call"), 学ぶ (manabu, "to learn"). Word-initial ぶ is /bu/.
How to write ぶ
Trace ぶ on the canvas at the top of the page. Animated arrows show each stroke's direction; trace along them and the stroke fills in. Each numbered step below explains what that stroke does.
Write ふ exactly: stroke 1 a short slanted dash near the top; stroke 2 a long flowing curving stroke that begins below stroke 1, dips down through the centre, and curves around at the bottom; stroke 3 a small dot on the lower left; stroke 4 a small dot on the lower right. Strokes 3 and 4 are tiny accents — quick flicks.
Add the dakuten (゛): two small tick marks at the upper right. Strokes 5 and 6 are the two ticks.
Origin
Hiragana ぶ shares its base shape with ふ, which evolved from the kanji 不 (fu, "not / un-"). The kanji's compact strokes opened into the flowing curve and two small flanking dots of ふ; the dakuten ゛ voiced /fu/ into /bu/. The same shape with handakuten ゜ becomes ぷ (pu).
Common words starting with ぶ
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing ぶ by hand — the top row shows the stroke order to trace, then fill the blank squares.
Lock it into memory
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