布达佩斯 (Bù dá pèi sī) — Budapest, capital of Hungary

Definition

noun
Budapestcapital of Hungary

Examples

  • 布达佩斯
    Wǒ jì huà míng nián qù Bù dá pèi sī lǚ yóu.
    I plan to travel to Budapest next year.
  • 布达佩斯
    Duō nǎo hé jiāng Bù dá pèi sī fēn wéi bù dá hé pèi sī liǎng bù fen.
    The Danube divides Budapest into two parts: Buda and Pest.
  • 布达佩斯
    Bù dá pèi sī Shì xiōng yá lì de zhèng zhì, jīng jì hé wén huà zhōng xīn.
    Budapest is the political, economic, and cultural center of Hungary.

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 布达佩斯 spell a foreign place name and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

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
jīnkerchief
Sound part声符shēngfú
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

布 pairs 巾, a kerchief, with 父 as a sound part.

Open 布 →

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
Written in full aschuò
Sound part声符shēngfú
Same sound today

This form 达 pairs 辶 (written in full as 辵) with 大 as a sound component.

Open 达 →

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

佩 is built from 人 (person) and 巾 (piece of cloth), plus 凡, whose role is unclear. Its original meaning was a large sash.

Open 佩 →

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 斯 →
Appears in

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