The word "liwei" is a Chinese name that consists of two syllables: li and wei. The first syllable, li, has the sound /li/ in IPA transcription, which is similar to the English word "lee" but with a shorter vowel sound. The second syllable, wei, has the sound /weɪ/, which is similar to the English word "way". The spelling of the word "liwei" reflects the standard romanization of Mandarin Chinese, which uses the pinyin system to represent the pronunciation of Chinese characters.