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马德里 (Mǎ dé lǐ) — Madrid (capital of Spain)

Definition

noun
Madrid (capital of Spain)

Examples

  • 马德里。
    Míng nián wǒ dǎ suàn qù Mǎ dé lǐ lǚ xíng.
    I'm planning to travel to Madrid next year.
  • 马德里。
    Mǎ dé lǐ De huáng jiā mǎ dé lǐ duì fēi cháng yǒu míng.
    Real Madrid from Madrid is very famous.
  • 马德里。
    Tā cóng Mǎ dé lǐ dài huí lái hěn duō jì niàn pǐn.
    He brought back many souvenirs from Madrid.

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.

马mǎ
德dé
里lǐ

The characters only spell the foreign name Madrid and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 馬; 马 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 馬 shows a horse with its head facing left, a flowing mane, and two legs standing vertically.

Open 马 →

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú
彳彳chìroad
Sound part声符shēngfú
惪
惪dé德dé
Same sound today

德 combines 彳, a road, with 惪, a component meaning virtue that also supplies the sound.

Open 德 →

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 裡; 里 is its simplified writing.

The simplified 里 stands for more than one traditional character. In most words (里, 里面) it is 裡; in others (公里) it is 里 or 裏.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
衤Written in full as衣yīclothes
Sound part声符shēngfú
里
里lǐ裡lǐ
Same sound today

The form 裡 pairs 衤 (clothes) with 里 as a sound component.

Open 里 →
Appears in
City & Urban

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