ra / ら
The first character of the R row — a two-stroke 'ra' (soft tap, not rolled) that anchors cherry blossoms, sky, and ease.
Pronunciation
The character ら represents the syllable 'ra', a soft Japanese 'r' followed by 'a' as in 'father'. The Japanese 'r' is a flap — a single tap of the tongue against the upper palate, somewhere between an English 'r', 'l', and 'd'. It is the first character of the ら-row.
ら opens the R row and shows up in beautiful everyday nouns — 桜 (sakura, cherry blossom), 空 (sora, sky), 楽 (raku, comfort). It also forms the friendly plural ending 〜ら for pronouns (彼ら "they"). The Japanese 'r' in ら is critical: it's NOT a rolled Spanish r and NOT an English r. It's a single light tap of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, almost like a quick 'la' or 'da'.
How to write ら
Trace ら on the canvas at the top of the page. Animated arrows show each stroke's direction; trace along them and the stroke fills in. Each numbered step below explains what that stroke does.
A short, slightly slanted stroke at the upper middle — quick, written left to right with a faint downward tilt.
A long flowing stroke that begins where stroke 1 ends, drops down through the centre, sweeps around at the bottom in an open curl, and exits with a small flick on the lower right. Similar to や's body but without the upper-right accent.
Origin
Hiragana ら evolved from the cursive form of the kanji 良 (ryou) — meaning "good" or "fine." The kanji's top accent and central body flowed together into the two strokes of ら, preserving the upper dash and the looping right-side flow.
Common words starting with ら
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing ら by hand — the top row shows the stroke order to trace, then fill the blank squares.
Lock it into memory
Reading is only half of it. Drill the hiragana you’ve learned with spaced-repetition flashcards — the fastest way to make them stick.