Tiananmen is translated into English as "
The Gate of Heavenly Peace". It is pronounced "tyEnn-unn-menn", not "tee-AN-a-men".
The
Chinese characters (
hànzĭ) are:
天
tiān, meaning
heaven, (amongst other things; "sky", "God" etc.);
安
ān, meaning
peace; and
门 (門)
mén, meaning
gate
The characters for "square" are:
广 (廣)
guăng, meaning
wide; and
场 (場)
chăng, meaning
open space.
Here is the whole word:
天安门广场 (天安門廣場)
The characters in
parentheses ( ) indicate the
traditional characters, as used in
Taiwan,
Hong Kong,
Japan and
Korea, etc.
Mainland China uses primarily the
simplified characters. Read about the differences at
Simplified Chinese vs. Complicated Chinese
Microsoft Chinese Language Support is required to view the above characters. You may also
download a
Unicode font such as
Arial MS Unicode or
MS Song.