Writing & spelling · 4 min
The katakana invented for foreign sounds
ファ, ティ and ヴ are not in the gojūon. They were built later to hold sounds Japanese did not have.
The basic kana were not enough
Japanese has no native f, v, ti or di. The gojūon chart has no slots for them.
That became a problem as loanwords poured in — there was no way to write the ti in "party" or the fi in "film". So existing kana were combined with small vowels to make new pairs.
The principle is the same as yōon: a full-size kana plus a small one, read as one sound. The difference is that yōon uses only ゃ ゅ ょ, while these use small ァ ィ ゥ ェ ォ.
The combinations you will actually see
| Combination | Sound | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ファ フィ フェ フォ | fa fi fe fo | ファイル (file), フォーク (fork) |
| ティ ディ | ti di | パーティー (party), ディズニー (Disney) |
| ウィ ウェ ウォ | wi we wo | ウィスキー (whisky), ウェブ (web) |
| シェ ジェ チェ | she je che | シェフ (chef), チェック (check) |
| ヴ ヴァ ヴィ | v va vi | ヴァイオリン (violin) |
| ツァ ツェ ツォ | tsa tse tso | モーツァルト (Mozart) |
ヴ is a special case
ヴ is ウ with a dakuten. It was proposed in the Meiji era — the suggestion is usually credited to Fukuzawa Yukichi — to represent v.
In practice Japanese speakers do not pronounce it as v. It is almost always read as b: ヴァイオリン comes out "baiorin".
So the spelling is drifting to the ば row as well. In 2019 the Japanese government dropped ヴ from official foreign place and country names — ヴェトナム became ベトナム.
You will still meet ヴ in brand names and musical terms. Read it as b and you will be right.
One word, several spellings
Because the extended forms are optional, a single loanword often has more than one accepted spelling.
"Party" appears as パーティー and パーティ; "violin" as ヴァイオリン and バイオリン. Neither is wrong.
As a learner, being able to read them is enough. If you ever need to write one, pick the more common form — usually the one without the extended combination.