How to create word/character sequence in Chinese that sounds the same as a word in English (or any other language) Say I have a word in English "fooboo". What if I want it to be pronounced in Chinese as "fooboo" as well? My first attempt is to search in pinyin for "fu" and "bu". Fu gives results like 副 and 付. Bu gives results like 不 and 部. So could I just make it be 付不 or 副部? Or does sound get assigned to characters independent of any character building blocks? That is, how do I associate sounds with some characters? Maybe instead of searching for the pinyin sound, I find two characters, and then say this is "fooboo". Is that acceptable? For example, maybe 事变 is "fooboo", even though the components are shì and biàn.
Quote:- "Maybe instead of searching for the pinyin sound, I find two characters, and then say this is "fooboo". Is that acceptable? For example, maybe 事变 is "fooboo", even though the components are shì and biàn"

Yes, if you are a, say, Martian, landed (randomly), in China and wish to use the Chinese characters to depict the sounds of the Martian language, and completely disregard the original Chinese meanings of the words chosen.

I am being serious here because this was what happened in Japan when the Japanese took the Chinese characters, pronounced them in Japanese sounds, and in some cases even the meanings changed.

So, perhaps in Martian, "fooboo" means "I come in Peace", and chose the Chinese characters 事变, and give it the pronunciation of fooboo.