The Chinese word 贝多芬 (Bèiduōfēn) is a phonetic transliteration of the German composer's surname "Beethoven," formed through a process of selecting existing Chinese characters that closely approximate the original foreign sounds without carrying their literal meanings. Each character represents a syllable: 贝 (bèi) for "Bee-", 多 (duō) for "-tho-", and 芬 (fēn) for "-ven." This is a standard method in Chinese for adapting Western names, where the chosen characters are primarily valued for their sound rather than their semantic content (though often positive or neutral characters are preferred), resulting in a recognizable and conventionally fixed label for the foreign entity.