Ra (kana)

Hiragana	Katakana
Transliteration	ra, la
Hiragana origin:	良
Katakana origin:	良
kana gojūon wa ra ya ma ha na ta sa ka a sokuon wi ri mi hi ni chi shi ki i dakuten n ru yu mu fu nu tsu su ku u chōonpu we re me he ne te se ke e wo ro yo mo ho no to so ko o

ら, in hiragana, or ラ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both versions are written with two strokes and have origins in the character 良; both characters represent [ɽa] ( listen) In the Ainu language, Japanese linguists developed a small katakana ㇻ that is used to represent a final r sound after an a sound (アㇻ ar). ラ is not pronounced as rounded trilling English r. The Japanese ラ is pronounced between the L and R of English, and somewhat closer to L than are the other r-kana.

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal r- (ら行 ra-gyō)	Ra, La	ら	ラ
	Rā, Lā	らあ, らぁ らー, ら～	ラア, ラァ ラー, ラ～

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing ら

Stroke order in writing ラ

Other communicative representations

• Computer encodings

Character	ら		ラ		ﾗ		ㇻ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER RA		KATAKANA LETTER RA		HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER RA		KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RA
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	12425	U+3089	12521	U+30E9	65431	U+FF97	12795	U+31FB
UTF-8	227 130 137	E3 82 89	227 131 169	E3 83 A9	239 190 151	EF BE 97	227 135 187	E3 87 BB
Numeric character reference	ら	ら	ラ	ラ	ﾗ	ﾗ	ㇻ	ㇻ
Shift JIS	130 231	82 E7	131 137	83 89	215	D7

ら / ラ in Japanese Braille
ら / ラ ra	らあ / ラー rā	Other kana based on Braille ら
		りゃ / リャ rya	りゃあ / リャー ryā

See also

• Japanese phonology