Listen carefully to how the Japanese pronounce these characters. The sound lies somewhere between L and R, but is not either L or R specifically. This difference in sound is because of the placement of your tongue in your mouth when you say R or L. For the Japanese, the tongue is placed somewhere between those two places when saying RA, RI, RU, RE, and RO
Be careful when learning RE, it looks similar to NE!
RA | ![]() |
a rabbit |
RI | ![]() |
a piccolo and a flute made of reeds |
RU | ![]() |
a rope with a ruby dangling at the end of it |
RE | ![]() |
a mountain climber resting with his climbing stick |
RO | ![]() |
a piece of rope |
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