ろ (ro) – Hiragana

Pronunciation

– Pronounced as the Japanese ‘ro’. This can be a difficult kana to pronounce for new students. There’s no direct word in the English language that has this sound, it’s rather a cross between the English ‘r’ and the English ‘l’. Imagine a sort of soft ‘r’ where your tongue doesn’t roll, then add the Japanese ‘o’ at the end of it – ‘ro’.

About

ろ, in hiragana, or ロ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. The hiragana is written in one stroke, while katakana in three. Both have origins from the Chinese character 呂.

Mnemonics

Mnemonic 1: This one is easy to remember if you know the Hiragana Mnemonic for ‘ru’. As you can see, someone has ‘robbed’ the ruby from the character!

Mnemonic 2: “roku” is the Japanese word for the number 6. This symbol looks like the number 3, which is half of 6. (If you have trouble recalling the meaning of “roku”, just remember that you play rock music on a guitar with six strings.)