The Chinese word 爱马仕 is formed as a phonetic transliteration of the French brand name "Hermès", with each character chosen for its sound rather than meaning: 爱 (ài) approximates "Her", 马 (mǎ) approximates "mès", and 仕 (shì) approximates the "s" sound, together creating the Mandarin pronunciation Ài mǎ shì.