I know that ふ is pronounced as hu but why is Memrise saying that is is spelled hu when before (while learning the kana) it was spelled fu?. I looked all over the internet and can’t find anything about why it would be spelled hu. The only thing I can think of is someone decided that forcing students to spell it the way it sounds is better for learning, but that can’t be right. So is this an error, a bad decision, or my ignorance?
This concerns the specific course you’re taking, rather than Memrise as a whole, since the course creator sets the answer and alternate answers. I learned kana with jlptbootcamp’s “Introduction to Japanese” course, for example, and both “fu” and “hu” are accepted there.
Personally, I’ve always seen it as an ‘either way’ sort of thing, when writing in romaji, since the actual sound is closer to something between the two English sounds.
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Listen carefully to the many example words provided in the educational video and try to mimic the sound rather than trying to map it to its English equivalent (because ふ is neither fu nor hu).
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The previous answers have already mentioned the gist of it, but I thought I’d explain a bit about the background 
Every human language has a set of phonemes. That are basically the distinguishable sounds that are used to speak the language. Western languages have typically around 30 to 60 phonemes. For example, in the English language there are about 13 to 21 phonemes for vocals alone (depending on you define them in the details), plus 22 to 26 phonemes for consonants. The “a” in “bath” is a different phoneme from the “a” in “face”, which is different from the “a” in “comma” and so on. Some languages contain only as little as about a dozen phonemes, some use more than 150.
The crucial point for the question at hand is that not every language uses the same phonemes. French uses some sounds that just don’t exist in German, for example, and Japanese uses some phonemes that are not used in English.
ふ is among those sounds that just are not in the inventory of the English language. It’s a sound somewhere between the English “fu” and “hu”. The same goes for the rest of the “h line”, and the “r line” as well. り is somewhere between the English “ri”, “li” and “di”. That, by the way, is the source for the racial cliché that Asian people “can’t plonounce the ‘l’ collectly” 
So there are a handful of sounds that you probably aren’t familiar with from your native language and that you just have to learn. But on the other hand, Japanese pronouncation is easier than for example in the English language: The same (hiragana or katakana) character is always pronounced the same way. As described above, that’s not true for English (or German, or French, or…).
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Thanks for your replies everyone. I gleaned most of everything you guys said while researching the topic before I posted this. I understand why someone may have done this, but I just can’t see why it would be correct. Imagine you’re learning English and someone tries to teach you to spell words how they sound instead of how they are actually spelled. That would be an issue right? I guess I just find it really frustrating when it tells me i’m wrong for spelling a word the way it is actually spelled. It’s also not just that I guess, sometimes the “I” is implied in a sentence and sometimes it isn’t and the only way to get it right is to remember what sentence to write the “I” in and it just really detracts from the learning experience. It’s like that moment when you were actually enjoying learning about something in school and you point out a mistake the teacher made and they talk down to you and it ruins the whole subject.
Anyway, i’m ranting at this point.
TinyCaterpillar, is there a way to message the course creator? If it would accept “fu” then I wouldn’t have a problem.
Tonbo, I watched that video while doing research before posting this, but my issue isn’t with pronunciation. I already understand how to pronounce the character, my issue is with spelling. If I’m using Romanji to answer a spelling question then “fu” is the correct answer for “ふ”. I understand the etymology of the character but like I said earlier, you can’t just spell a word incorrectly and say it’s right because it sounds closer right? And, like I said to TinyCaterpillar, if it accepted “fu” and “hu” I wouldn’t have an issue, but ふ in romanji is fu, not hu, even if it sounds closer.
Henning.kockerbeck, thanks for the info, I got most of that off wiki before I posted this, but it’s good to know that the kana always pronounced the same though 
But, like I said, I get why they want “hu” as an answer, but the correct Romanji is “fu” right? If it took either i’d be fine with it, but you can’t just switch back and forth, it’s really frustrating. I’ve already got the pronunciation down, my issue is with spelling. It’s annoying that I’m half way through the course but it brings up several words from the beginning more often than not because of the spelling of ふ. Know what I mean?
@ybor363
I understand the issue better now, it seems you are getting wrong answers for information you can recall because of technical factors regarding course quality.
My advice is to not settle with anything less than what provides you with the most efficient results in exchange for your time. (I hate fumble-guessing answers and repeating words that I know but fail because of ambiguity issues.)
Part of the problem is that romaji is inherently flawed. It’s a method that tries to take one language and write it in an alphabet that sounds completely different. There are multiple systems for writing Japanese in romaji, and none of them are perfect, though I do definitely agree that it’s annoying when a course is inconsistent about it.
I would personally recommend using an IME, which you can get an intro on here, if you aren’t familiar with them. This would allow you to type directly in Japanese, and avoid such annoying issues.
Concerning your question, if the user who created the course has joined the forum, you could send them a message by going to their profile (usernames are the same here as they are on Memrise) and clicking “Message” in the upper-right. I think you need a certain trust level before you can send messages though. You can also ‘tag’ users, by typing their username in any post, with a “@” at the start, as Tonbo did in their last post. This will alert the user to your post, again assuming they’ve joined the forum.
If it’s an official course that you’re taking though, you can post any issues here.
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But this is not what is happening. Neither hu nor fu are actually correct spellings. The correct spelling is ふ
I hear your frustration that different Romaji courses use different Romaji spelling systems. If you are studying primarily with a Romaji-first textbook, or audio-first recordings such as Pimsleur, then it might make sense to find a complementary Memrise course by skimming through the Romaji courses and looking at the course levels to see if they use the same Romaji system.
But most teachers word urge you to transition away from using and thinking in Romaji as quickly as possible in your studies.
@lurajane ふ is the correct Japanese spelling, hu/fu are correct Romanji spellings. I did a little more research and actually found the answer I was looking for. So far I’ve always seen ふ spelled “fu” in Romanji so I just assumed there was the only Romanji spelling. I assumed that it was a standardized alphabet, and if that were the case I would be right. As it turns out there are three variations of Romanji. The Hepburn Romanji spells it “fu” and that’s the only one I’ve used (thus the asumption). If that were the only version then “fu” would be the correct Romanji spelling for ふ. As it is though Kunrei-shiki Romanji spells it “hu” with “fu” as an exception, and Nihon-shiki Romanji that spells it “hu”. So that is the information I was looking for.
I’m only using Romanji here on Memrise, and as far as I can find it doesn’t list what Romanji system it is using. I’m not concerned with learning Romanji, but the course makes me use it, but isn’t consistent with what answer it accepts. Course 1 stated that “fu” was the only acceptable answer, but course 2 (seemingly at random) will only accept “hu” as a correct spelling, but not all the time. This is my issue.
@TinyCaterpillar Thanks for the link, It is a Memrise course, so I made a thread.