Katakana Letter Hi

Katakana Letter Hi at U+30D2 represents the Japanese katakana syllable hi, pronounced like “hee” in a short, crisp mora. It belongs to the Katakana block and is a regular phonetic letter, not an alphabetic consonant or standalone word. In Japanese writing, it appears mainly in katakana words: foreign loans such as ヒント for “hint,” sound effects, technical terms, brand names, and names written in a foreign or emphatic style. It also pairs with small vowel kana to approximate non-native sounds, as in ヒュ for “hyu,” used in words such as ヒューマン for “human.” The same character is used in furigana-like pronunciation aids, dictionary entries, language-learning materials, and transliteration systems where katakana shows how a sound should be read. It has a hiragana counterpart, ひ, with the same basic pronunciation; the choice between them signals writing style and word type rather than a different sound.