Adds a plural or group sense, especially after pronouns, names, or words for people. It is not a general English-style plural marker and can sound casual or slightly rough with some nouns.
They are waiting in front of the station.
Limited, fossilized use after an adjective stem, as in 清ら. It is not a productive suffix in ordinary modern speech and often has a literary or elevated feel.
See also: 清ら
They (he and the others) were playing soccer in the park.
We want to take part in that plan too.
There are many old shops around here.
I think you can buy it for around ten thousand yen.
Pure water flows down from the mountain.
The station should be somewhere around there.
たち is the more neutral, all-purpose pluralizing suffix for people, while ら is especially common after pronouns like 彼ら and 僕ら and can sound more casual.
くらい is freely used to express approximation of amount or degree, whereas ら's approximate sense is limited to fixed words like ここら and そこら.
ら is a casual, mildly dismissive plural suffix, whereas 共 (ども) is more strongly marked as either self-humbling or contemptuous and is rarer in modern speech.
ら is a more blunt, sometimes rough pluralizing suffix (彼ら), whereas ズ carries a trendy, casual '-s' feel borrowed from English.
Usual modern spelling for this suffix; All senses are usually written in kana.
Attested kanji spelling, but modern writing normally uses kana for suffix -ら. The kanji 等 is more often encountered with other readings such as とう or など.
The suffix ら is a native Japanese suffix; the exact historical development is not specified. The kanji 等 is a conventional semantic spelling associated with plurality or grouping, but this suffix is usually written in kana.
they; those guys
these guys; these fellows
they; those guys