It was misspelled for many years: RAE explains the correct way to laugh in text

Now that instant communication is possible via text messaging , it's common to send dozens of messages a day with friends, family, acquaintances, partners, and coworkers. This way, people share a variety of information, including common jokes, to which people generally reply "hahaha," and if they want to express a laugh, they use these two letters in a prolonged manner.

However, this would not be grammatically correct. As the Royal Spanish Academy recently explained, it indicated that laughter should be written like this: 'Ha, ha, ha.' See more: Don't fall for it: the most common forms of cyber fraud and what to do to avoid becoming a victim. Indeed, the organization (which is considered the law in matters of grammar) explained that the correct way to write laughter in a text is to include commas between each repetition and should always be written with the letter J.

Keeping in mind that in English it can be 'ha ha ha', since in that language the H sounds like a J, but in Spanish this letter has no sound.

See more: Have you heard of them yet? Some innovative apps powered by AI​ The Academy also explained that this correctly reproduces the prosody of laughter, with each element having its own accent. However, if you write 'jajaja', it would have a flat or grave pronunciation ([jajája], and this would not reflect the sound of laughter.

The RAE also noted that this interjection is generally written in sequences of at least three repetitions ("ha, ha, ha") if it's meant to express "normal" laughter. However, if it's written only once or twice, it can be synonymous with irony, disbelief, or mockery: "Ha, ha. Yes, of course."

It is worth mentioning that not only is 'ja' (with an A) used, but there are also those who use the E or the I and write “je”, “ji”, “jo” and “ju”, which can refer to other emotional nuances, such as an ironic, evil or sarcastic laugh.

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Some literary examples cited by the RAE include:– “They almost drowned, ha ha ha” (Alfonso Sastre).

– «—Ho, ho, ho —he clucks» and «—Hee, hee, hee —the woman mocks» (Javier Tomeo).

See more: Viral TikTok skincare routines worry dermatologists, study says It's worth mentioning that the way laughter is expressed in writing is not the same in all languages. For example, in English it is written "hahaha"; in French it is common to read the abbreviation "mdr" (mort de rire, which means to laugh out loud) in chats. In Brazil, they write "kkkkkk" or "rsrsrs." In Japanese, the letter "w" (from warai, laughter) is repeated; while in Thai it is written "555555", since the number 5 is pronounced "ha."

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