互联网 ： hùliánwǎng - Internet

互联网 (hùliánwǎng) is "Internet". Literally this is "mutual-connect-net". You might sometimes see the longer form 互联网络 (hùliánwǎnglù). 网络 (wǎnglù, "net-road") is "network".

The character 网 (wǎng) is particularly useful and interesting. Fortunately in the simplified form it is also easy to recognize! As in English, the term for a computer network comes from the word for a rope net like a fishing net. You can see the character looks something like a net.

网 appears in many words for networking, as well as Internet and web related terms. Important ones are 网站 （wǎngzhàn) "website", 网址 (wǎngzhǐ) for network or web address and 万维网　(wànwéiwǎng) "World Wide Web" (literally something like "ten-thousand-tied-web"). Note how nicely the Chinese term starts with three "W" sounds. (And is shorter than the English term; oddly "WWW" is an acronym in English that actually has more syllables than the term it stands for!).

Another net-related term using 网 is a good example of the kind of trouble you can get into if you don't pay attention to your tones: 网吧 (wǎngbā) is "Internet Cafe" (or bar, 吧 likely being already used phonetically for the English word), while 王八 （wángbā) although literally "tortoise" means a cuckold, from 王八蛋　(wángbādàn, "turtle's egg") meaning "bastard". (Thanks to 林老师 from first-year Chinese for this tip!)

The second character in 互联网 is 联 (lián), "connect, join". This you'll see as the first character in 联想 (liánxiǎng), the Chinese name for Lenovo, the maker of the (formerly-IBM) Thinkpad. The company name means something like "connected-thinking" or "think together" or "mentally associate with". Kind of interesting considering IBM's old motto.

• China Internet NIC
• China Next Generation Internet Project [下一代互联网]
• 互联网周刊 - China Internet Weekly
• Wikipedia on 万维网