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Pinyin | běi (third tone) |
| English | north | |
| Pronounced like 'bay' | ||
This character is based on the original picture of two people with their backs to each other.
North is a component of two Chinese Provinces : Hubei (literally lake North) and Hebei (literally river North) as well as the capital city of Beijing.
The old spelling 'Peking' used a different phonetic system (Wade-Giles) and it shows that the chinese sounds have no exact equivalent, the first consonant is somewhere between 'b' and 'p', while 'jing' and 'king' look miles apart but the Chinese sound is somewhere in between.
| běi | jīng |
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| Beijing (Peking, Peiping) = Northern Capital |