Rofl, kkkk, 55555, haha, MDR: The world map of laughter

Online language learning platform Preply analyzed 26 of the world’s most spoken languages ​​to find out how people worldwide express their laughter on social media online.

German speakers therefore prefer “haha”, “LOL” (“laughing out loud”), but also *grins* (sometimes abbreviated to *g*) and *lach* to express their laughter. But the “haha” is also in the English language Area very popular, for example in the USA, (in the English-speaking part of) Canada or in Ireland, while the British prefer “LOL”.

Poles also use “haha” to express laughter. However, Polish teenagers also express their pure joy with the word “heheszki”, which means something like “kick and laugh”. This is not much different than the English “ROFL” (“rolling on the floor laughing”), as Preply explains.

Of course, the proud French don’t even think about sharing a laugh with Americans, English or Germans and do their own thing: “MDR”. This stands for “mort de rire” (dead with laughter). According to Preply, the Spaniards express their laughter with “jajaja” – or “jijiji” when they are feeling mischievous. Italians prefer “ahahah” or “eheheh”.

Portuguese and Brazilians, on the other hand, prefer the character string “kkkk” or “rsrsrs”: an abbreviation of “riso”, which means “to laugh”. Koreans also use “kkkk”, but Thailand and China use numbers to laugh, with Thais using “55555” to express their humor online. The explanation for what we consider to be an unusual sequence of digits: The number 5 is pronounced like “haa” in Thai. In mainland China, on the other hand, “23333” is used.

By the way, Norwegians laugh like Santa Claus: “Høhøhø”.

The full list of laughter expressions can be found here.