If something is slightly amusing it gets a "hehe" response.
If it is funny, it graduates to receiving a "hahaha."
If something is really funny we LOL and if it is hilarious, we are ROFL.
But what if your home language is not English? In Thai, the number 5 is pronounced "ha," so instead of saying "hahahahaha," Thai speakers will sometimes write "55555."
However, in Mandarin, the number 5 is pronounced as "wu" which, in English is the sound equivalent of "boohoo". This means that laughing in one language would be crying in another language!
The Kanji character for "laugh" is pronounced as "warai" in Japanese. This was soon shortened to "w" and this resulted in Japanese laughter to be expressed by "www" (not to be confused with the abbreviation of the World Wide Web).
Like many non-English languages, French also uses LOL to express laughter. But if you are French and you are rolling on the floor laughing, you would rather use "MDR". This is a delightful acronym, meaning "mort de rire," or "dying of laughter."
