The word 探戈 is formed through phonetic borrowing, where two existing Chinese characters are selected solely for their sound to mimic the pronunciation of the foreign word "tango". The character 探 (tàn) approximates the "tan" sound, and 戈 (gē) approximates the "go" sound, creating a combined pronunciation that closely matches the original. While the individual characters have their own meanings (like "explore" and "spear"), these meanings are completely disregarded in this formation; the word is a pure sound-for-sound translation created to introduce the concept of the Latin American dance into the Chinese language.