Bunpro is constantly making me wrong for typing zu instead of du for づ. It’s infuriating! Is there a setting to change this?
Wikipedia states zu for the romanization of this. Other apps I’m using to learn use zu. My native Japanese wife says she would also use zu… why is Bunpro different here?
Its probably because the づ is a rendaku of つ. Maybe typing du instead of zu ensures you know the original pronunciation of the kanji (つ not す)? In any case, when it happens to me I just correct my answer and move on to avoid dropping the SRS level
If you use an IME keyboard and type zu, you get ず and if you type du, you get づ. Even though they have very similar pronunciations they are in fact two different characters and there will be times where you need to use the correct one. This should not be infuriating as it is the correct way to type in order to get the correct kana.
Hey @wpragnell !
There is no setting to change this since づ (du) and ず (zu) are different letters!
It has been standardized to use ‘du’ and ‘zu’ on the Japanese keyboard to differentiate between ず and づ because they are pronounced the same, but they are different letters.
When wikipedia states that ‘zu’ is the romanization for づ, it is talking about the Hepburn romanization. This is different from JIS X 4063:2000 which is the standardized method for converting keystrokes to kana. The difference between the two is that JIS X 4063:2000 is not meant for romanization, but simply a input method.
What this means is that to type ぬまづ, you have to type ‘numadu’, but if you want to romanize ぬまづ you can use ‘zu’ instead of ‘du’ (Numazu).
Hope this answers your question!
I heard that in some places they are pronounced slightly differently. Is that right? 
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I guess the frustration comes from this being implemented differently across apps and platforms. Not much to be done about that I suppose.
zu and du do produce different characters when you type in Japanese, so that’s why it’s incorrect.
zu = ず
du = づ
You made me curious so I asked 4 of my coworkers and they all said it was pronounced the same. I live in Hokkaido, so maybe there are regional differences, but they all seemed very confident that there aren’t.
Yeah my wife (from Fukuoka originally, but spent a long time in Fukushima) also says they are pronounced the same.
Are they really pronounced the same? In my native language (slovak), we have a letter “dz”, so it is natural that I see づ as “dzu” and ず as “zu”. There is a tiny difference in pronunciation. The scale from softest to sharpest sounds is: “su” (す) - “zu” (ず) - “dzu” (づ) - “tsu” (つ)
At least that is how I have been looking at it, I’ll have to iron it out once I get to level where I can actually listen to japanese.