The Chinese word 里约热内卢 is formed by phonetically transliterating the Portuguese name "Rio de Janeiro" into characters that approximate its sounds: 里 (lǐ) for "Ri", 约 (yuē) for "o", 热 (rè) for "Ja", 内 (nèi) for "nei", and 卢 (lú) for "ro", resulting in a sequential representation of the foreign pronunciation.