The word 阿姆斯特丹 is formed through a process of phonetic translation, where characters are chosen not for their meanings but for how closely their sounds approximate the syllables of the foreign name "Amsterdam". Each character represents a syllable: 阿 (ā) for "A", 姆 (mǔ) for "mster", 斯 (sī) for "s", 特 (tè) for "t", and 丹 (dān) for "dam". The result is a string of characters that, when spoken in sequence, closely mimics the pronunciation of the original Dutch city name.