Serene Zawaydeh: Why does Chinese language stay away from R in many names of Places? By Serene Zawaydeh. June 3, 2026

Why does Chinese language stay away from R in many names of Places? By Serene Zawaydeh. June 3, 2026

国(guó)家(jiā): Country

Thousands of characters that need be learnt to understand written Chinese. As for the spoken Mandarin, more and more words keep appearing that sound like words previously learnt. There are also different dialects, which seem to be mixing up the sounds that the student learns. With a different dialect, shan would turn into san; while shi would turn into si. Chinese focuses on the written language, with characters conveying meaning. More advanced spoken language would be rich in four-character idioms and expressions which together convey a specific meaning.

Chinese names of countries give an idea about how words in Chinese transform names compared to the original names. For example, many names of places that have R in English and Arabic, turn into L in Chinese, or the R is totally dissolved and does not appear in the Chinese name. This gives Chinese people the impression that people in other countries change the L into R, as was noted by a Chinese student. Staying away from “R” might make it difficult for Chinese native speakers to pronounce words in other languages. For example, a Chinese student learning Arabic found the letter ر R very difficult to pronounce and made a lot of effort trying to pronounce it in different way.

It should be noted that the Chinse language has R in many words, such as 如(rú)果(guǒ)，然(rán)后(hòu)，然(rán)而(ér) ; 让(ràng), 让(ràng)步(bù)；认(rèn)识(shi)，人(rén)，热(rè); 儿(ér)，而(ér)，二(èr)，尔(ěr)，耳(ěr). There is a different R which sounds like “ir” as in 日(rì). The pronunciation of 人，and让by a native Chinese teacher, sounds different than the normal “r”, and seems to have a “j”.

Following are examples of names of countries and cities in Chinese along with the Arabic and English names.

Name in Chinese	Name in Arabic	Note
摩洛哥Móluògē	المغرب	Morocco. Chinese changes R into L in country name.
巴拉圭 Bālāguī	باراغواي	Paraguay. Chinese changes R into L.
约旦 Yuēdàn	الأردن	Jordan. Chinese removed R in country name.
澳大利亚 Àodàlìyǎ	أستراليا	Australia. Chinese removed R in country name.
[SZ1] 日本 Rìběn	اليابان	Japan. The name in English and Arabic do not have “r”. Japan is Nippon in Japanese.
尼日尔 Nírì'ěr	النيجر	Niger. Only three countries have the character 日 in Chinese: Japan, Niger, and Nigeria.
尼日利亚 nírìlìyǎ	نيجيريا	Nigeria. The G does not appear in the Chinese name in Niger and Nigeria.
阿根廷 Āgēntíng	الأرجنتين	Argentina. R removed from country name.
挪威 Nuówēi	النرويج	Norway
法国	فرنسا	France
旧金山 Jiùjīnshān	سان فرانسيسكو	San Fransisco
新加坡 Xīnjiāpō	سنغافورة	Singapore
加拿大 Jiānádà	كندا	Canada
卡萨布兰卡 Kǎsàbùlánkǎ	الدار البيضاء	Casablanca
利雅得 Lìyǎdé	الرياض	Riyadh
安曼Ānmàn	عمّان	Amman, the capital of Jordan. Chinese name is “An-man” while the original name does not have “n”.
阿曼 Āmàn 阿曼苏丹国 Āmàn sūdān guó	عُمان سلطنة عُمان	Oman. Oman’s country name Āmàn in Chinese sounds like the name of Jordan’s capital, Amman. The name of Sultanate is like Sudan苏丹 السودانwith added 国, which adds more confusion.

The following website provides the full list of country names in English and Chinese with Pinyin, and the way they are pronounced in the local language.

https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/countrynames_chinese.htm#S

In Chinese, the word for Kingdom is 王wáng国guó， and the king is called 国guó王wáng.

Many country names in Chinese have the word “国”. For example, France is 法fǎ国guó，Germany德国, 美měi国guóUSA, 英yīng国guó UK , 中zhōng国guó China.

Meanwhile, there are countries that are Kingdoms, but do not have the word 国.

The following countries are all kingdoms, but do not have the word 国 in the country’s name: Jordan 约旦；沙特阿拉伯Saudi Arabia； Morocco 摩洛哥；Bahrain 巴林.

Saudi’s name includes the character 沙shā which appears in the word desert, which is 沙shā漠mò while the name in Arabic has the “s” sound, and does not refer to the desert.

中国means China. The word 中 means middle.

国guó家jiāmeans country. 家alone means home or family.

One of the first questions that Chinese learner has to answer, is:

Which country are you from? 你是哪国人? Nǐ shì nǎ guórén?
Where do you come from? 你来自哪里？Nǐ láizì nǎlǐ?

The answer for this question would require knowing the country name in Chinese.

The word 人rén means person. It is added after the name of the country, to say that the person is from that country. For example, 中国人means Chinese person. Adding the word 人 after the name of the country, indicates the citizenship of the person.

Question: 你是哪国人？Which country are you from?

Answer: 我wǒ是shì【Country Name】人rén。

我wǒ means I 是shì means am.

Japan is called日rì本běn in Chinese， while the country’s name in Japanese is Nippon, without R, and in Arabic it is اليابان Al-Yaban. So why is Japan referred to as 日本？The word 日rìmeans Sun, and 本běnmeans root.

I looked up some information about Japanese language. The Japanese writing system uses three sets: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Kanji characters look like Chinese characters, which are called 汉hàn字zì in Chinese. Having a different pronunciation for Chinese characters would be very confusing if someone is learning Chinese. As for the Chinese Katakana, it looks so much simpler than Chinese characters.

Katatkana system has ra, ri, ru, re, ro. The Japanese variations for letters and having a, u, i, as in Ka, Ki, Ku are similar to having the Diacritics or Harakat in Arabic language.

Could having the R’s in Japanese language be the reason why Japan is called 日本 in Chinese, although Japan’s name in Japanese, English and Arabic, does not have R? Could historical conflicts between the two countries, be the reason behind staying away from R in names of many places in Chinese; transforming the R into L or completely avoiding the letter R? Afterall, thousands of Chinese characters are available, and Chinese language already has the letter R in Chinese words, as highlighted at the beginning of this blog.

Blogs I wrote about Learning Chinese.

1 Presentation about Jordan for Chinese Students. May 15, 2026

2 Understanding Given Chinese Text using Language Player - An HSK6 Example. by Serene Zawaydeh. March 19, 2026

3 Chinese Tone Changes Rules. Could reading given pinyin result in pronunciation errors? By Serene Zawaydeh. March 15, 2026

4 Examples of Chinese Characters, Similarities, and Meanings. By Serene Zawaydeh. December 21, 2025

5 HSK3.0 Syllabus - Note about 400 page Syllabus document available on test center's website.

6 Sharing tips about studying Chinese: From typing Chinese characters, to apps used for studying. By Serene Zawaydeh. November 3, 2025

7 Is it easy to determine the pinyin and tone of a Chinese character 汉字 seen for the first time? By Serene Zawaydeh. September 19, 2025

8 Dynamic learning of Chinese: “Shi” is the most common sound in Chinese Words from HSK1 through HSK6. By Serene Zawaydeh. November 24, 2024

9 Tips for Practicing Writing Chinese Characters. By Serene Zawaydeh. September 10, 2024

10 Change is the only Constant Thing in the Process of Learning Chinese. By Serene Zawaydeh. July 19, 2024

11 Making up Stories using Chinese Characters. 看汉字写小故事！by Serene Zawaydeh. June 29, 2024

12 What if… Higher Levels of HSK Chinese Tests could be Redesigned? By Serene Zawaydeh. April 2, 2024