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Today I went to an ice-cream shop with my Chinese friend, and we wrote notes to stick on the wall. My friend wrote:

enter image description here

开心、健康、平安、发发发
kāixīn, jiànkāng, píng'ān, fā fā fā

The first three items are ordinary well wishes, but I have no idea why she would write 发发发. I asked her about it, but she couldn't explain it to me.

Question: Why did my friend write 发发发 on her note?

Searing for 发发发 at YouDao gives inappropriate suggestions, and it's not listed at Dict.cn, nor Line Dict, nor 小马词典.

Community
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Becky 李蓓
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2 Answers2

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发发发;

发 is short for 发财（get rich, make a fortune）. There is a catch saying: 重要的事情说三遍(important things should be reiterated three times). This is kind of emphasis for its importance. That's why people usually put three 发s: 发发发. They wish you make a great deal of money!

dan
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    Note that 重要的事情说三遍 is an online meme/catchphrase popular since 2015, but 发发发 or the phenomenon of triplets has been widely used long before. – Frenzy Li Jul 05 '18 at 03:47
  • @dans On the contrary, the origin of “重要的事情说三遍” is disputed and all proposed origins has no direct relation with the historical Chinese usage-- variant of popular Japanese ACG catchphrase; Japanese comedy shows; Japanese commercials. “重要的事情说三遍” cannot be used as an explain the origin of “发发发” but the existence of phrases such as “发发发” and techniques of using three-time-repetition to prove a point both prompted the invention and popularization of “重要的事情说三遍”. – Frenzy Li Jul 05 '18 at 04:15
  • Thank you for your suggestion. However, I'm not writing a competing answer because there already is one. – Frenzy Li Jul 05 '18 at 04:58
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发：Short for 发财，make a fortune，become rich。

Chinese people like to use reiterative locution to emphasize the strong meaning or wish. Other cases like: 好好好、 旺旺旺、棒棒棒、赞赞赞。 Sometimes you will also see 888 instead of 发发发，because 888(bababa) has similar pronunciation with 发发发(fafafa) and much easier to write/type.

Bruce Huang
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    666 is another common one - not for the devil though. – Mou某 Jul 05 '18 at 05:33
  • @user3306356 Aha, yes, you're right! – Bruce Huang Jul 05 '18 at 05:35
  • @user3306356 Presumably not as a stand-in for 发财 either, since liù doesn’t exactly sound like either fā or _cái_… so what is 666 used for? I’ve only ever seen it used to mean ‘exaggerated floods of tears’ (because 666 is ‘one more’ than 555, which sounds like 呜呜呜). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 05 '18 at 07:32
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    @JanusBahsJacquet 666 stand for 六六六(means smoothly,顺利) or 溜溜溜(means proficiency,熟练) – Bruce Huang Jul 05 '18 at 07:59
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    @JanusBahsJacquet I was just adding it to Bruce’s list of “other cases,” perhaps I didn’t make that clear. 666 can also be for 牛牛牛 (poor southern accents!) to mean awesome, amazing, wicked. – Mou某 Jul 05 '18 at 08:13