篮球
lánqiú · HSK 2
basketball
🏀 篮 (basket) + 球 (ball) = basket-ball
篮 means basket (the 竹 bamboo radical on top hints at woven baskets). 球 means ball or sphere. Stick them together and you get the literal calque of the English word basketball.
球 — jade radical 玉/王 + qiu 求 (phonetic)
球 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 王 is the 'jade' radical, indicating the original meaning: a fine piece of jade or a jade ornament. The right side 求 supplies the sound 'qiu'. Over time the meaning broadened from a jade sphere to any round object, and today it most commonly means 'ball' or 'globe'.
lán qiú · HSK 3
basketball
🏀 篮 (basket) + 球 (ball) = basket-ball
篮 means basket (the 竹 bamboo radical on top hints at woven bamboo baskets). 球 means ball. Chinese mirrors the English compound exactly: basket + ball.
球 — jade radical 玉/王 + qiu 求 (phonetic)
球 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 王 is the 'jade' radical, indicating the original meaning: a fine piece of jade or a jade ornament. The right side 求 supplies the sound 'qiu'. Over time the meaning broadened from a jade sphere to any round object, and today it most commonly means 'ball' or 'globe'.