Phonetic transliteration of "Don Quixote":
堂 táng (Don, Spanish honorific) +
吉 jí (-qui-) +
诃 hē (-xo-) +
德 dé (-te). The Cervantes novel (1605/1615) was first translated into Chinese in 1922 by Lin Shu and Chen Jialin. "
堂吉诃德式" (Don-Quixote-style) is now a Chinese idiom for futile, idealistic crusades — the same English-language metaphor of "tilting at windmills."
