克罗地亚 (Kè luó dì yà) — Croatia | tongtong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

noun

Croatia

克罗地亚。
Wǒ qù nián qù guò Kè luó dì yà.
I went to Croatia last year.
克罗地亚。
Kè luó dì yà Shì yí gè měi lì de guó jiā.
Croatia is a beautiful country.
克罗地亚。
Wǒ hěn xiǎng míng nián qù Kè luó dì yà lǚ yóu.
I really want to travel to Croatia next year.

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.

克罗地亚 spells Croatia; the characters are only sound symbols.

Sound-only characters

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 羅; 罗 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 羅 combines 网 (net) with 維 (a bird tied with string) to show a net for catching birds; the simplified 罗 is a later abbreviation.

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

土也地

Meaning part形符xíngfú

土土tǔearth

Sound part声符shēngfú

也

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

地 is built from 土 (earth) and 也, which gives its sound.

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 亞; 亚 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 亞 likely shows an overhead view of a construction, perhaps a 亞-shaped tomb. Its later simplified form 亚 is just a shorthand.