The Chinese word 巴基斯坦 (Bājīsītǎn) for "Pakistan" is formed entirely through phonetic transcription, where each character is chosen primarily for how closely its pronunciation approximates a syllable of the foreign name. The characters 巴 (bā), 基 (jī), 斯 (sī), and 坦 (tǎn) sequentially mimic the sounds "Pa-ki-s-tan", with the common ending "坦" (tǎn) often used in Chinese for transliterating the "-stan" suffix found in country names. The individual meanings of the characters (like "base" or "flat") are irrelevant and incidental to this process.