The word "华尔兹" (huá'ěrzī) is formed through a purely phonetic process of transliteration, where three Chinese characters are chosen solely for how closely their combined sounds approximate the pronunciation of the English word "waltz". Each character, 华 (huá), 尔 (ěr), and 兹 (zī), loses its original meaning in this context and functions only as a syllable to mimic the foreign sound, collectively creating a new term specifically for the dance introduced from Western culture.