The Japanese Tsu and Fu Sounds: How to Pronounce Them

Two sounds English only half has

Neither sound is exotic. English speakers produce ts constantly in words like cats and bits, and an f-like breath through the lips when blowing on hot food. The problem is that Japanese places these sounds where English never does, so the mouth reaches for the nearest familiar sound instead.

That is why these errors survive long after grammar has improved: they are habits of position, not of knowledge.

Tsu at the start of a word

Make tsu by touching the tip of your tongue just behind your top teeth, as for t, then releasing into s without a gap. The t and the s happen as one sound.

Start from a position you already have. Say cats, hold the final sound, then add u. Then move the sound to the start of a word.

The substitutions that change words

Minimal pairs to drill

Minimal pairs train both your ear and your mouth. Say each pair slowly, then quickly, and ask whether a listener could tell them apart.

Record yourself saying the list in a random order and play it back a day later. If you cannot tell which word you said, the listener cannot either.

Fu: lips, not teeth

Make fu by rounding your lips gently and blowing air through the narrow gap, with your teeth out of the way. It is softer than an English f and has no buzz of the teeth against the lip.

A good image is blowing out a candle without much force. The vowel after it is a relaxed Japanese u, not a rounded English oo.

Fu and tsu in loanwords

Katakana uses fu with small vowels to write foreign f sounds, and the same lip sound applies. Tsu with a small vowel writes sounds like ts in foreign words.

Putting the sounds into sentences

Individual words improve fastest; sentences are where old habits return. Once pairs feel steady, practise short sentences at normal speed, then have a conversation where you are not thinking about pronunciation at all.

Unihongo's pronunciation lab generates drill lines for your level and scores the sounds and mora timing of each recording, showing which mora slipped. Follow it with a conversation with your AI Sensei, and check the session report's corrections for any word that was misunderstood.