The Chinese word "亚的斯亚贝巴" is formed through phonetic transliteration of the English name "Addis Ababa", where each character is chosen solely for its sound to approximate the original pronunciation: "亚" (yà) for "A", "的" (de) for "di", "斯" (sī) for "s", and again "亚" (yà) for "A", "贝" (bèi) for "be", and "巴" (bā) for "ba", combining to mimic the syllables of the foreign term without regard to the characters' meanings.