The Chinese word for Finland, "芬兰" (Fēnlán), is a phonetically constructed transliteration, where the two characters were chosen primarily for their sound to approximate the foreign name "Finland" rather than for their individual meanings. The first character "芬" (fēn) carries connotations of fragrance or aroma, while "兰" (lán) means orchid, but their semantic meanings are largely incidental in this context. This method of creating a new word by combining characters that mimic the pronunciation of the original name is a standard practice in Chinese for translating foreign country names.