How is “hue hue” actually pronounced in (Brazilian) Portuguese?

Question

This question is coming from the meme about Brazilian players supossedly spamming “huehuehue” in some game. On urbandictionary, it says that’s the Brazilian way to express the sound of laughter. However, it doesn’t say how it is pronounced or whether it is solely written that way by Brazilians.

I don’t know any Portuguese, so I was wondering:

• Do the Portuguese also write “hue hue hue”?
• How do Brazilians and Portuguese pronounce it?
• In English it’s “ha ha” or “he he”, why is there a “u” in “hue hue”?

Answer 1

Adding to what Eduardo said, "hue hue" isn't the Brazilian way to express the sound of laughter, it's only one of the many textual laughs Brazilians use.

"Hue hue hue", pronounced somewhat this way and explained in details below, is the, exclusively Brazilian, laugh of "zoeira". "Zoeira" means joking, making fun of things.

Additionally, "hue" can also be a typo from the "heu heu heu" laugh.

But hue can also be more than just an internet laughing, it can also be considered as a concept.
As hue's foundation, it's said by Brazilians that "the zoeira has no limits" and "the zoeira never ends". There's the word "hueragem" that is the practice of doing "hue" things. So basically hueragem is the Brazilian "skill" of making fun of everything that is possible to make of, be that verbally (like joking) or practically (like causing a mess on a social network page or online game, etc.), just for fun, and never knowing when to stop.

Usually (or most of the times) it's used in an international context, like in an online game, Brazilians directly joking someone of another country, etc., in which "hueragem" means the practice of doing hue things specifically by Brazilians to people of another nationality, causing people from these countries to create bad stereotypes about the Brazilians, known, at least in online games, by their mark: the "hue hue hue" laugh.

Some examples of hueragens:

Tyler James Willians being spammed with quotes from "Everybody Hates Chris" by Brazilians.

Brazilians spamming Grammy's page with indications for the singer Inês Brasil (this resulted in a ban)

Bad habits in games by Brazilians

But please keep in mind however, that these behaviors are disapproved by many Brazilians, being considered a shame/embarrassment these people cause Brazil to take because of them. And the others just find these funny.

Pronunciation

The "hue hue" laughing mixes the phonetics of both English (H) and Portuguese (U and E).

H

Every (yes, every) textual laughing Brazilians use that start with an H, the H is pronounced just like in English (like in "hat", or IPA /h/).

"But if the Brazilian Portuguese R (as in "rato") is pronounced the same way, why not to use it instead of H that is mute in Portuguese?" you may ask. Well, most of Brazilians don't really like laughs that start with this sound to be spelled with an R (like "Ra Ra Ra"), we find that "too Portuguese" (language) or maybe "too correct", and prefer much more using an H for that sound. (Note: this only applies for laughs, nothing more than that.)

U

Pronounced like the IPA /u/, or like the U in "empanturrado".

E

The E, pronounced like the E in "comer" or IPA /e/, is the stressed vowel in "hue".

Adding it all up, "hue" would be pronounced something like /hu'e/. It can also be pronounced like /hw'e/.

Answer 2

It is merely an intentionally "retarded" way of laughing, as when such players are really having fun with such attitude. That's why you see memes with a "retarded" facial expression for laughing.

Answer 3

It's a internet expression which came from online multiplayer games.

There are many ways to express a laugh:

• ha ha (pronounced almost the same as in English, because it is imported from English);
• rs (abbreviation of risos, which means laughter; people use rsrsrs too);
• kkk (maybe the most used);
• hua hua hua (also a variation of hue);

As a native, I've heard friends say hue hue hue like we say the word rua, but changing a to e.

I guess hue came from a typographical error of he he, since in online games you need to type and play almost at the same time. If your keyboard have a QUERTY layout you can see the h near u. There is also some variation of this typographical error: shue, huash, and others. Well, just type randomly near from h and a or e and see what happens.

Wondering about hue hue, I use it as slang to denote a sort of smart ass, someone who will feel like a smart guy even if they do something bad or stupid. In online game servers they would play with illegal accounts, or speak only in Portuguese, and don't care about it (also have a lot of fun with it writing hue hue br br!).

A way to write a laugh as a onomatopoeia could be: "rá rá rá" or "ra ra ra" (with any vowel). This way would be near our pronunciation.

Keep in mind most of these forms are just a way to abbreviate and communicate faster through internet.

Answer 4

Brazilians write laughs in several ways (almost infinite), the spellings are "personal" onomatopoeias, being the most common I see: "hehehe", "hahaha" and "kkkkk".

The "h" has the sound as in the word hat in English, so similar to the sound of: risos, rato, retorno, etc in Portuguese. I believe this is a foreignness, from English. But look below the problem of using the "r" in Portuguese in the middle of the word.

ONOMATOPEIAS (FREE NEOLOGISM)

There are several variations of "hehehe" or "hahaha" using all vowels and some combinations like "hihihi", "huhuhu", "hauhauhau", "hoehoehoe", etc. There are also variations of the replications with and without the spaces like: "he he he", "hehe", "heheheheheheh...".

There are also the "kkkk" which is pronounced as "ca ca ca ca" using just the ca from word car, which is a natural pronunciation of k in Portuguese.

Rarely but used, are the onomatopoeias using the "r" instead of "h", like: "rarara", "ririri" ("rerere" I haven't seen yet, but is possible). These form has a problem to be correctly pronounced in Portuguese because just the first "r" has the sound of h like in hat, the others have the sound if r in rat. So, its strict pronunciation is English would be something like "ha ra ra", from ha(t), ra(t). To be more correct it should be written with spaces "ra ra ra", now this "ra" has the sound of ha(t) in English, and so could be an pseudo-onomatopoeia.

As free onomatopoeias, I have some friends which prefer to be unique and write things like "quiquiqui", "cacaca", "kaukaukau". So, there are many others.

The spelling variations may have a lot of motives, being the main: personal preferences, as people laugh differently can be a try to imitate it. But there are others like cultural of a group, or imitation of friends from a group, like the explanation for memes to be spread around the world. I have the example of the word "casul" which became common in Brazil just in the world of games to refer a newbie player, the origins is from "casual player".

As a meme, few people (or nobody) knows its origins either meaning (or pronunciation), so the pronunciation of "huehuehue", can be (the most probable) an English pronunciation or any adaptation to sound like an onomatopoeia for laugh.

RISOS

There are also the word "risos" (laughs), usually in plural, written as an informal (incorrect) abbreviation, like: "rs", "rs rs", "rsrsrs", and several others replications and combinations.

The full word risos is also used, with some exceptions, usually among parenthesis or braces like: (risos), [risos]. These forms is usually written in the final of the phrase like: A festa ontem foi maravilhosa, adorei relembrar as histórias do colégio (risos).

Answer 5

Origin:

I have two hypotheses:

1. It's derived from "evil laughter" as in mwa-haha → huahuahua → huehuehue

2. It just came from a random combination of H + any vowel that represent various kinds of laughter (including evil, retarded, silly, uncontrolled, whatever): huaieuhiauehiuahhiuhiuheiaha

Pronunciation:

(this has been answered, just in case some kind of doubt remains)

IPA: /hu'e/ or /hwe/.

Using an English-like transcription: hoo-e (E as in Eight).

Do we really laugh that way?

No.

Answer 6

Well I'm Brazilian from State of MG (Minas Gerais) and I've never heard of "hue hue hue" — I found it funny.

There are many ways in which we Brazilians show laughter, such as:

• rsrsrsrsrs (which is the abbreviation for the word “laughter” (risos)

• kkkkkkkkkk

• kakakakaka

• hahahahaha

• hauhahuauha (some do this one I don't know why, rs)

• hehehehe (the /e/ sound in Brazil goes for the sound /e/ inside the diphthong /ei/ as in the word day)

But if you want to be ironic, you can laugh like HA HA HA (no funny).

These are the ones I'm remembering for now. I use more kkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

Answer 7

As has been noted by many others, my experience is also that "hue hue hue" is not a lusophone meme at all, not onomatopoeic for the sound of laughter in portuguese.

Loosely, you could imagine that it is meant to preserve the foreign character of portuguese sounds to english speakers, and still be onomatopoeic to the sound of laughter (it is basically a misspelled laughter sound).

If you asked a portuguese speaker to pronounce it as if it were a lusophone utterance, there are a couple of variations you might hear:

• hi (as in the english word "he") if they decide to try to be faithful to the onomatopoeic character.
• wi (again, as "we" is said in english) if they are not from portugual. This is because "h"s are silent in portuguese, particularly at the beginning of a word. (quick reference) Also, 'e finals' (the 'e sound' for "e"s at the end of a word) have their sound changed to "i" in common Brazilian portuguese (and often enough other locations).
• ɣui or χui or ʁui (these first letters are ips symbols for various R sounds as pronounced in portuguese) if the speaker is portuguese and decides to anglify the pronunciation rules but use portuguese sounds, therefore electing to use "r"s for the initial "h" sound.
• ɣu or χu or ʁu same as above, but following the portuguese pattern of dropping the final e. This is common in portuguese speach, for example: Sara Sampaio illustrates Portuguese where she says "O meu nome é Sara. É assim que se fala Português" which sounds to an english speaker rather like "Meu Nom é Sara. É assinc sfala Português" —notice all the dropped final e's.
• a final option might be u for people from Portugual, both dropping the silent "h" and dropping the final "e".