Chatting is fun! You can write with other kids for free on numerous children’s chat portals. Moderated chats are particularly practical. An adult reads along to settle disputes and, in the worst case, kick kids out of the chat. It’s a lot more fun that way. While chatting, you will come across many abbreviations and smileys that you might not know yet. To fill in the gaps in your knowledge, we would like to introduce you to the most common smileys, abbreviations and rules in chats.

Do’s & Don’ts

Basically, you can write anything in chat as long as you don’t insult anyone, lie to anyone, or tell secrets without permission. Some kids think they’ll get more attention if they write everything in CAPITAL LETTERS. In busy chats, it’s sometimes hard to stand out. Still, you’re better off not writing in all caps. Because in chat, it means you’re shouting. So use capital letters only occasionally when you want to communicate something important. Smileys and abbreviations should be used sparingly. Because chats flooded with smileys are difficult to read. It’s no fun when half the screen is full of them. So for the sake of your fellow chatters, refrain from overdoing it. Don’t forget not to give out personal data like address, name or phone number in the chat. You can find more safety information and practical tips for using chats on the Internet on our homepage in the “Chatting” section.

Smileys And Stickers For Facebook

Do you use Facebook, Whatsapp or any other social network? Then you probably know that they have their own smileys that you can use. Most of the common smileys (like 🙂 ) cause a little picture with the smiley to appear in Facebook. It’s best to just try it out!

Facebook also offers fun, larger images called “stickers”. When you message someone, you can access your sticker collection by clicking on the smiley face (next to the camera) in the bottom right of the bar. Here you can send pre-installed stickers or select new collections by clicking on the plus sign.

Smileys For Other Chats And SMS

Smileys are not only popular on Facebook. The small emoticons make it easier to express feelings on the Internet. Depending on the chat, there is sometimes a huge selection of available smileys. If the chat doesn’t support smileys, you can simply create them using the characters on your keyboard. This is also done in SMS. The following character combinations are well-known smileys that almost everyone knows and understands. Be careful not to use too many of these smilies.

Depending on which chat you are in, there are also smileys that are activated by a word. For example, the command /wink/ makes a winking smiley appear in some chats. Complete smiley lists can be found on the homepage of the respective chat.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations like HDL (Hab dich lieb) and similar are used not only in chats but also for SMS. They came into being at the same time as SMS. Because a long time ago you had to pay a fee per SMS. Free SMS did not exist at that time. Therefore, people wanted to be as short as possible to use as few SMS as possible for a message. With some cell phone contracts, you still pay a fee per SMS.

However, the following abbreviations are widely known and used by many people on the Internet. Still, remember not to use too many abbreviations per chat message.

Chat Commands

Depending on the chat, you can use different chat commands to add a special touch to your text. The following tips are not suitable for all chats. You can read about the chat commands available in your favorite chat in the chatiquette or ask the moderator. By the way, a chatiquette is something like the house rules of the chat. It contains all the important rules that apply to all chat users.

Let’s assume your username is “cookie”.

/me

Put this command in front of your message. Example: /me is hungry becomes cookie is hungry.

/s

With this you can shout something into the chat. Example: /s Spaghetti!!! becomes cookie shouts: Spaghetti.

!!!

/y

This command makes you yodel. Example: /y Hello everybody! Will yodel to cookie: Hallihallo you dears!

/w

This command shows you which chatters are in the current room.

/j

Lets you switch to another room. Put the name of the room in the < > brackets .

/sepa

This will open a closed room. Only users you invite there can enter it.

/i

Invite another user to your closed room.

/a

Accept an invitation.

/away

With this you can let the others know that you are away from the PC for a moment. In the <> brackets you can write why. Example: /away becomes cookie logs off for a moment (cooking spaghetti).

/f

Shows you who of your friends is online.

/ig

This is an extremely useful command if someone is bothering you. You can use it to ignore a chatter. His messages will not be displayed to you until you log out. He will then be on the so-called “ignore list”. Type this command again to delete the user from your ignore list. Then you can see his posts again.

Worksheet For The Text

1) What is allowed in a chat? What should you leave out?

2) What is chatiquette?

3) Have you memorized some of the most common abbreviations? Write the abbreviations and their meaning here.

4) Which command can be used to open a closed room?

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