LI-4

('li' in the fourth tone)

Some 102 sgtandard Chinese characters are spoken 'li'. Some sound-determining elements are: 里 , 立 , 力 , 丽  , 利

The most common 'li' character is 里, which has two primary (and many secondary) meanings: spoken in the third tone, it means 'inside', and spoken with no tone after 这, 那, and 哪, when it means 'place'.

力 = force, power

力气 = li(4)qi(-) = physical strength

气 = qi(4) = air, gas

If a person is tired, he or she may say:

我没有力气. = Wo(3) mei(2) you(3) li(4) qi(-). = I have no energy.

*****

利 = profit

This character combines the characters for grain seedling, 禾 = he(2), with the side-version of the character for knife, 刀 = dao(1). This makes good sense. For farmers, when is is time to cut the grain, this is when profits are materialized.

Because 'li', in various pronunciations, is a common morpheme in the Chinese language, the two-character version is typically used for the word 'profit'.

利润 = li(4)run(4) = profit

Chinese supermarket chain:

利客隆 = Likelong = li(4)ke(4)long(2) = Profit Guest Prosperous (Chinese company names are sometimes hard to translate)