friend 朋 and 友 and 朋友

[Mike]

I understand that 朋 can mean friend, and so does 友 - but you say, for example, 你有中国朋友吗？ So my question is when can 朋 or 友, by themselves, be used to mean friend?

Thanks guys - 圣诞快乐!

迈克尔

[Desmond]

Nope!

Although 朋 and 友 mean "friend" by themselves, that's not how it's used in mondern day speech. Chinese has a lot of stuff like this, but in order to make the language more clear in spoken form, it has evolved to become largely di syllabic.

[Quest]

朋 can be used in 亲朋, 良朋

友 in 好友, 故友，友人, 友dachi

but not by themselves.

[smalldog]

Words for particular types of friend usually use 友:

校友 schoolfriend

网友 netfriend

战友 friend from the army

男/女友 = 男/女朋友 boy/girlfriend

[semantic nuance]

there's an example in 孔子Confucisou's teaching.

有朋自遠方來, 不亦樂乎

[chenpv]

Although 朋 and 友 mean "friend" by themselves, that's not how it's used in mondern day speech. Chinese has a lot of stuff like this, but in order to make the language more clear in spoken form, it has evolved to become largely di syllabic.

Impressive, Desmond.

Mike, the word you proposed is called '同义复词', which is explained by Desmond.

And there are other two groups:

1. 反义复词：in which the two characters have opposite meanings, but as a whole, the word is used to describe a single thing:

eg: 开关(switch) literally translated as 'turn on,turn off'

出入 (discrepancy) literally translated as 'a little more, a little less'

2. 偏义复词：in which one character lost its meaning while evolution, or the meaning of one character overshadows the other:

eg: 国家 (nation), In traditional Chinese, it means 'nation and home' which are two most important things for a man. but now the character '家' has lost its meaning in this word.

存亡，literally, it means 'live and die'. In traditional Chinese, both characters are stressed like in 'To be or not to be'. well nowadays, the meaning of 'not to be' outweighs the meaning of 'to be' in this word.