The Chinese word "危地马拉" (Wēidìmǎlā) is a phonetically formed transliteration of the Spanish name "Guatemala," representing the country in Central America. It is constructed by selecting Chinese characters whose sounds closely approximate the syllables of the foreign name—"Guа-" becomes "危地" (wēidì), and "-temala" becomes "马拉" (mǎlā)—with the characters themselves carrying neutral or vaguely meaningful connotations (like "dangerous land" and "pull horse") that are generally disregarded in favor of their phonetic value, which is standard practice for translating foreign proper nouns into Chinese.