The Chinese word "俄勒冈州" (Élègāng zhōu) for the U.S. state of Oregon is formed through a standard three-part process of phonetic transliteration and semantic categorization: the characters "俄勒冈" (Élègāng) are chosen primarily for their sound, closely approximating the pronunciation of "Oregon," while the final character "州" (zhōu), meaning "state," is added as a semantic classifier to clearly indicate that the term refers to an administrative region, following the common Chinese convention for translating foreign state and province names.