ぱぴぷぺぽ — The P Row
Why the P row?
The P row is the chart's only handakuten row: H row + ゜ (a small open circle, distinct from the two-tick ゛). It dominates two big vocabulary families. First, loanwords from European languages: パン (pan, "bread", from Portuguese), ペン (pen), ピアノ (piano), プール (puuru, "pool"), ポスト (posuto, "post / mailbox"). Second, onomatopoeia — Japan's rich system of mimetic words: ぴかぴか (pikapika, "sparkling"), ぽかぽか (pokapoka, "warm and sunny"), ぺこぺこ (pekopeko, "very hungry"). Native words use the P row after ん, where /h/ assimilates to /p/: 散歩 (sanpo, "a walk"), 心配 (shinpai, "worry"), 鉛筆 (enpitsu, "pencil").
Pronunciation at a glance
Words you can read with the P row
With every base and diacritic row plus ぱぴぷぺぽ, you can now read every kana on the standard chart. These examples lean heavily on the P row's two specialties: loanwords from European languages, and the rich Japanese system of onomatopoeia.
What's next
You've reached the end of the standard hiragana chart — every base kana (あ through ん), every dakuten variant (G, Z, D, B), and the handakuten P row. The only chapter left is combined kana: small ゃ, ゅ, ょ attached to i-row characters to spell sounds like きゃ (kya), しゅ (shu), ちょ (cho), and the dakuten/handakuten variants ぎゃ, じゅ, ぴょ, etc. These appear in countless everyday words — 客 (kyaku, "guest"), 写真 (shashin, "photograph"), 病院 (byouin, "hospital").