Qīngcháo wénxiàn cháng chēng Yīngguó wéi Yīngjílì.
Qing-dynasty documents often called Britain 英吉利.
Tips
history
A Qing-era transliteration of 'English/England'. Modern Chinese contracts it to 英国 (Yīngguó, 'Ying-country'), keeping just the first syllable. 英吉利 survives in fixed terms like 英吉利海峡 (the English Channel) and in historical writing.
memory
Three characters, three syllables — 英 (Eng) + 吉 (lish, approximating /gli/) + 利 (the trailing vowel). It maps the foreign word onto auspicious-sounding characters: 英 'hero', 吉 'lucky', 利 'profit'.
