The Chinese word "瑞士" for Switzerland is formed primarily through phonetic transliteration, where two characters are selected to approximate the sounds of the foreign name. The character "瑞" (ruì) echoes the "Swi" sound and carries the meaning of "auspicious" or "lucky", while "士" (shì) approximates the "ss" or "land" sound and means "scholar" or "gentleman". This method combines auditory similarity with subtly positive semantic associations, a typical approach in Chinese for adapting foreign place names into written form.