Ru (kana)
る, in hiragana, or ル in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. The hiragana is written in one stroke; the katakana in two. Both represent the sound [ɾɯ] (
| Form | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal r- (ら行 ra-gyō) |
Ru, Lu | る | ル |
| ruu, luu rū, lū |
るう, るぅ るー, る〜 |
ルウ, ルゥ ルー, ル〜 |
| ru | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||
| transliteration | ru, lu | |||
| hiragana origin | 留 | |||
| katakana origin | 流 | |||
| spelling kana | 留守居のル Rusui no "ru" | |||
| kana gojūon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stroke order
 Stroke order in writing る |
 Stroke order in writing ル |
The hiragana for ru (る) is made with one stroke, and its katakana form (ル) is made with two.
る (hiragana) begins with a horizontal stroke to the right, followed by a slightly longer, angular stroke going down and to the left. Finally, a curve and loop are added to the bottom that somewhat resembles the hiragana no (の). The character as a whole is visually similar to the hiragana for ro (ろ).
ル (katakana) is made by first making a curved stroke going down and to the left, and is followed by a stroke that first goes straight down, and then a curved line going up and to the right.
Other communicative representations
| Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun Code |
| 留守居のル Rusui no "Ru" |
 |
|
 | |
| Japanese Navy Signal Flag | Japanese semaphore | Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling) | Braille dots-145 Japanese Braille |
- Full Braille representation
| る / ル in Japanese Braille | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| る / ル ru | るう / ルー rū | Other kana based on Braille る | |
| りゅ / リュ ryu | りゅう / リュー ryū | ||
|  |  | |
| Character | る | ル | ﾙ | ㇽ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER RU | KATAKANA LETTER RU | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER RU | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RU | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 12427 | U+308B | 12523 | U+30EB | 65433 | U+FF99 | 12797 | U+31FD |
| UTF-8 | 227 130 139 | E3 82 8B | 227 131 171 | E3 83 AB | 239 190 153 | EF BE 99 | 227 135 189 | E3 87 BD |
| Numeric character reference | る | る | ル | ル | ﾙ | ﾙ | ㇽ | ㇽ |
| Shift JIS | 130 233 | 82 E9 | 131 139 | 83 8B | 217 | D9 | ||
