ra / ラ
The first of the R row — “ra,” a soft tap between r and l. Same sound as hiragana ら, opening radio, light, and label.
Pronunciation
The character ラ represents the syllable 'ra', identical in pronunciation to hiragana ら. Extremely common in loanwords — radio, light, love, line, balance, label, and countless others.
ラ is the katakana twin of hiragana ら. The Japanese r is one light tap of the tongue, between an English r and l — so ラ covers both. It opens loanwords like ラジオ (radio), ライト (light), ラブ (love), ラベル (label).
How to write ラ
Trace ラ 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 horizontal stroke up top, left to right.
Below it, a stroke that runs to the right then sweeps down to the lower left — a フ-like curve.
Origin
Katakana ラ comes from the kanji 良 (ra / ryō, “good” or “fine”). Its upper strokes were pared down to the dash-and-curve of ラ.
Common words starting with ラ
Printable practice sheet
Print this worksheet to practice writing ラ 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 katakana you’ve learned with spaced-repetition flashcards — the fastest way to make them stick.