The Chinese word 哈利路亚 is formed solely through phonetic transliteration, where each character is selected to mimic the sound of the foreign term "Hallelujah": 哈 (hā) for "ha", 利 (lì) for "le", 路 (lù) for "lu", and 亚 (yà) for "yah", resulting in a sequential sound-based approximation.