So Happy Together

The other day I was talking about Chinese characters, and how their meaning is often dependent upon the character which comes before or after it.  I found a good example in a sign on the way home.  As I’ve said before “China” in Chinese is Zhōngguó, which means “Middle Country.” The Chinese word for “international” is guó jì.  The character guó is the same in both words, meaning “country.” The second character, jì, means “border, boundary, or juncture.” Together they mean “international.”

The sign I saw earlier was for a company called China International something-or-other, a bank I think.  I noticed that the character for country came twice next to each other, and I guessed that this was the first character in their word for “international.” Sure enough, I just looked it up and there it was.  Here’s how you write “China International” in characters.

Literally translated this is “Middle Country Country Juncture.” But you can’t read Chinese like that, because the characters are dependent on each other.