w in Japanese and other ways to Laugh Online
If you have ever looked at Japanese comments or tweets online and wondered “What is w in Japanese“? You have come to the right place.
Just like English, Japanese has abbreviations on the internet people use to express their emotions. Specifically, if you want to show someone is laughing you have a few options.
- 笑
- w, wwwwww
- 爆
Let’s take a closer look.
INDEX
lol in Japanese
The three main symbols for laughing online in Japanese are 笑, w, and 爆.
笑
笑 is the Japanese Kanji for laugh and is pronounced わらい. So if you see this Kanji alone in someone’s text you can think of it as lol in English. You may also sometimes see it in brackets like, (笑).
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/wwwwwww
Since 笑 starts with the w sound and so you can abbreviate it into w. This can also be increased to multiple characters like wwwwwww. If you see multiple w like this, it is like someone is saying, hahahahaha.
爆
Finally, Japanese also needs a way to say LMAFO, which is 爆 or (爆). This Kanji is from the word, 爆笑. We know that 笑 means laughing already. 爆 is the character for explosions so in this case 爆笑 is burst into laughter.
