How the World Laughs in Text: haha, 555, kkk and www

If someone writes "555" in a chat and you have no idea why, you're not alone. Laughter in text looks different in almost every language, and once you know the codes, they're one of the friendliest things to learn.

How different languages type a laugh

• English: haha, lol and a long list of variants. Add more letters and the laugh gets bigger.
• Spanish: jajaja. In Spanish the letter j sounds like an English h, so this is the same as "hahaha".
• Portuguese (Brazil): kkkk. The more k's, the funnier it is. It's meant to imitate the sound of laughing.
• French: mdr, short for mort de rire, "dead with laughter". Also ptdr for a stronger version.
• Thai: 555. The Thai word for five is pronounced "ha", so 555 reads as "ha ha ha".

• Japanese: w or www. It comes from the word warau, meaning "to laugh", and a row of w's looks a bit like blades of grass, which is why you'll also see the word 草 (kusa, "grass") used the same way.
• Korean: ㅋㅋㅋ. The letter ㅋ makes a "k" sound, and the repeated sound is a laugh. ㅎㅎ is a softer, giggly version.
• Chinese: 哈哈 (hāhā) is the standard laugh. You may also see 233, an internet slang for laughing that started on a Chinese forum.
• Arabic: هههه, the letter that sounds like "h", repeated.
• Hebrew: חחח, with a similar sound.

It's not just the letters

Length and punctuation matter as much as the characters. In many languages a single "haha" is polite and a long "hahahahaha" is real amusement. Capital letters can mean the laugh is loud. In some places, a bare "ha" or "lol" with nothing else can read as flat or even sarcastic.

Emoji add another layer, and they don't always carry the same weight. A 😂 can mean "I'm really laughing" in one place and "that's mildly funny" in another.

What to do with this

Learning the local laugh is a small, easy way to sound more natural. If someone types "555" at you, you can type "555" back and they'll know you've been paying attention.

If you're not sure what something means, ask. "What does that mean? I've never seen it before" is a perfectly good message, and most people enjoy explaining their own slang.

And when in doubt, there's always a plain "haha". Almost every language on the internet understands it.