The word "卡啦" is formed through phonetic transliteration, where the character "卡" (kǎ) is used to represent the sound "ka", and "啦" (lā) represents "la", together approximating the foreign sound "kara" as heard in terms like "karaoke". Each character is chosen solely for its phonetic value, without regard to its original meaning, to create a disyllabic loanword.