びゃびゅびょ — The BY Row
Why the BY yōon?
The BY yōon group is small in scope but critical in vocabulary — the third of the diacritic yōon (HY + ゛). びゃ is the rarest of the three on its own, surviving mostly in the phonetic shift of 百 ("hundred") inside specific numeral compounds: 三百 (sanbyaku, 300). びゅ is also rare — wind onomatopoeia (びゅう, byuu) and the loanword デビュー (debyuu, "debut"). びょ is the densest of the trio, dominating medical and time-counting vocabulary: 病院 (byouin, "hospital"), 病気 (byouki, "illness"), 病人 (byounin, "patient"), 秒 (byou, "second"), 平等 (byoudou, "equality"), 描写 (byousha, "description").
Pronunciation at a glance
Words you can read with BY combined kana
With every row plus the BY combined kana, you unlock the medical vocabulary (hospital, illness, patient), time-keeping (seconds), counting (三百), and a small set of vivid onomatopoeia. These examples lean on びゃ, びゅ, びょ. Print these as flashcards →
What's next
One yōon group left: ぴゃぴゅぴょ (PY — ぴ + small ゃ/ゅ/ょ). It's the HY yōon with the round handakuten ゜ instead of the dakuten ゛. PY appears mostly in phonetic shifts of 百 (六百 roppyaku 600, 八百 happyaku 800), onomatopoeia (ぴょんぴょん pyon-pyon, "hopping"), and loanwords. After PY, you'll have covered every kana in the modern hiragana chart.