po / ぽ
The last of the P row — ほ with a small round circle (゜) becomes 'po'. The final kana of the chart. Anchors mailboxes, dandelions, and the warm onomatopoeia ぽかぽか.
Pronunciation
The character ぽ represents the syllable 'po', a hard 'p' followed by 'o'. It is ほ with the handakuten that hardens 'h' to 'p'.
ぽ is ほ (ho) plus the handakuten ゜ — the final kana of the chart and the last diacritic variant you'll learn. It anchors loanwords like ポスト (posuto, "post / mailbox"), ポケット (poketto, "pocket"), ポルトガル (porutogaru, "Portugal"); onomatopoeia like ぽかぽか (pokapoka, "warm and sunny / pleasant"), ぽつぽつ (potsupotsu, "sparse / drop by drop"); and native words like たんぽぽ (tanpopo, "dandelion"). After ん, native compounds often shift /h/ to /p/: 散歩 (sanpo, "a walk"), 一本 (ippon, "one long object").
How to write ぽ
Trace ぽ 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 ほ exactly: stroke 1 a short vertical on the left; stroke 2 a long horizontal-with-tail near the top right; stroke 3 a second horizontal just below stroke 2; stroke 4 a long flowing curving stroke that begins below the horizontals, drops down through the centre, and loops around at the bottom right.
Add the handakuten (゜): a small open circle at the upper right of the character. Stroke 5 is a single tiny circle. Don't confuse with ぼ (which has two ticks ゛). With this final stroke, you've completed every diacritic variant in the hiragana chart.
Origin
Hiragana ぽ shares its base shape with ほ, which evolved from the kanji 保 (ho, "to protect / preserve"). The handakuten ゜ produces the /p/ sound; the same ほ base also accepts ゛ to become ぼ (bo). As the last kana in the standard chart, ぽ marks the completion of all 71 base + diacritic hiragana.
Common words starting with ぽ
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing ぽ by hand — the top row shows the stroke order to trace, then fill the blank squares.
Lock it into memory
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