Chinese words

Chinese is exceptionally complex in that every character is unique, and one line or one dot can change the entire meaning of a character. But in some ways it is also very logical, and I think this is most evident in how new words like Internet and television have been integrated into Chinese. For example: the Chinese word for 'internet' is 網路. The literal translation? "Net road." Another example: the Chinese word for 'movie' is 電影. Literal translation: "electric shadow." While some languages, like Japanese, and to a lesser extent, Korean, have simply adjusted foreign words to their own pronunciation (i.e. kom-pyu-ta for computer), Chinese tends to use already existing words to try and explain new words. Of course there are a lot of instances of phonetics taking precedent. For instance, "New York" becomes "niu yue" and "Starbucks" becomes "xing (star) ba ke."

And then of course, there are the rare instances in which phonetics and meaning converge. The best example of this is "Coca Cola." In Chinese: 可口可樂. Literal translation: Delicious and happy. Marketing doesn't get much better than that.

Here are a few other words that I find particularly creative in the way they use already-existing Chinese words to describe the function/use of the new word:
電腦: "electric brain" = computer
火車: "fire car" = train
直升機: "straight-rising machine" = helicopter
風潮: "wind tide" = trend
明信片: "clear letter card" = postcard
牛仔褲: "cowboy pants" = jeans
變色龍: "change color dragon" = chameleon
洗手間: "wash hands room" = bathroom