西贡 (xī gòng) — Saigon (former name of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

Definition

noun
Saigon (former name of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

Examples

  • 西贡。
    Wǒ qù nián qù le xī gòng lǚ yóu.
    I went to Saigon for tourism last year.
  • 西贡。
    xī gòng Shì yuè nán zuì dà de chéng shì zhī yī.
    Saigon is one of the largest cities in Vietnam.
  • 西贡。
    Cóng hé nèi dào xī gòng zuò fēi jī dà yuē liǎng gè xiǎo shí.
    It takes about two hours by plane from Hanoi to Saigon.

Origin

Single-morpheme word
构词法gòucífǎ
音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

The characters only represent the sounds of Saigon and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 西 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 貢; 贡 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
貝貝bèi
Sound part声符shēngfú
工
工gōng貢gòng
Same sound today

The traditional form 貢 uses 貝 for meaning and 工 for sound; the simplified 贡 is a later abbreviation.

Open 贡 →
Appears in

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