LI

The most common 'li' character is 里, which has to 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'.

li(1)

li(2)

li(3)

li(4)

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.

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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)

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li(-)

里 = place / only in the following combinations:

这里 = zhe(4)li(-) = here

那里 = na(4)li(-) = there

哪里 = na(3)li(-) = where?