ロ

ロ (ロ, X30ED) is Unicode character number 12525, Katakana.

In Japanese, ロ is pronounced as "ro"; similar to sound of Greek letter \( \rho \), or "lo", similar to first cyllable of word "low".

ロ can be drawn as square, slightly deformed, dependently on software.

ロ appears as letter in words, borrowed into Japanese from other languages and written with Katakana.
By itself, ロ is considered as abbreviation of word ロシア, referring to Russia or anything (or anybody) Russian.

⼝, ⼞, ロ, ㋺, ﾛ

The Utf8 encoding of the 5 similar characters can be revealed with PHP program du.t;
It can be activated with activated with command

php du.t ⼝⼞ロ㋺ﾛ

The output is

⼝⼞ロ㋺ﾛ
The array has 15 bytes; here is its splitting:
e2 bc 9d e2 bc 9e e3 83 ad e3 8b ba ef be 9b
array(5) {
  [0]=>
  string(3) "⼝"
  [1]=>
  string(3) "⼞"
  [2]=>
  string(3) "ロ"
  [3]=>
  string(3) "㋺"
  [4]=>
  string(3) "ﾛ"
}

Unicode character number 12061 id est, X2F1D
Picture: ⼝ ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE2 XBC X9D in the hexadecimal representation and
226 188 157 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 12062 id est, X2F1E
Picture: ⼞ ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE2 XBC X9E in the hexadecimal representation and
226 188 158 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 12525 id est, X30ED
Picture: ロ ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE3 X83 XAD in the hexadecimal representation and
227 131 173 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 13050 id est, X32FA
Picture: ㋺ ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE3 X8B XBA in the hexadecimal representation and
227 139 186 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 65435 id est, XFF9B
Picture: ﾛ ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XEF XBE X9B in the hexadecimal representation and
239 190 155 in the decimal representation

Phonetic

ロ can be pronounced as "Ro" or as "Lo", dependently on the context.

At transliteration of English words with Katakana, words Lock and Rock both are transliterated as ロック.

Hiragana

The Hiragana partner of ロ is ろ ; it has the same sound, "Ro" or "Lo".

ろ is used as letter in Japanese words written in Hiragana.

Examples

ログイン, Login

ログイン, Logout

ロック, Lock

ロシア, Russia

ロトンダ, Rotonda

Confusion

ロ is highly confusional character.

Even the native Japanese speakers, looking at images of characters
⼝, ("gudhi", mouth)
⼞ and
ロ,
usually cannot guess,
which of them is X2F1D ("gudhi", mouth),
which of them is X2F1E (frame to write some Japanese characters inside) and
which of them is X30ED.

In cases of a confusion, symbol X30ED
can be identified with its Unicode hexadecimal number X30ED
or by its Utf8 encoding %E3%83%AD or
as partner of Hiragana letter ろ.

References

https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%83%AD
https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/ロ

Keywords

Confusion, Japanese, Katakana, Mouth, Russia, Unicode, X30ED (ロ),