The Chinese word 宾夕法尼亚州 is formed by phonetically transliterating the English name "Pennsylvania" using characters that approximate its sounds: 宾 (bīn) for "Pen", 夕 (xī) for "syl", 法 (fǎ) for "va", 尼 (ní) for "ni", and 亚 (yà) for "ia", with the character 州 (zhōu) appended to indicate that it is a state.