甜美
tián měi · HSK 7
sweet
🍯 甜 sweet + 美 beautiful = sweet and lovely; tián měi
甜 (tián) is the taste sweet; 美 (měi) means beautiful or pleasant. Together they describe something sweet and lovely, often a smile, voice, or happy feeling.
甜 — tongue 舌 + sweet 甘
甜 is a compound ideograph combining 舌 (tongue) and 甘 (sweet, itself a pictograph of something held in the mouth). The tongue tasting something sweet conveys the meaning 'sweet' or 'pleasant'. It largely replaced 甘 as the everyday word for sweet taste.
美 — sheep 羊 on top + big 大 below
美 is traditionally explained as a pictograph of a person (大) wearing a large sheep or ram's-head ornament, suggesting beauty through adornment. An alternative reading takes 羊 (sheep) over 大 (big) to mean 'a big, fat sheep'—seen as delicious and pleasing, hence 'beautiful, good'.