The Chinese word 哥斯达黎加 is formed through phonetic transliteration, where each character is chosen to approximate the sounds of the English name "Costa Rica": 哥 (gē) for "Co", 斯 (sī) for "s", 达 (dá) for "ta Ri", and 黎加 (lí jiā) for "ca"; the characters serve solely to represent the pronunciation without conveying inherent meaning related to the country.