与 (yù): to take part in; to participate

Meanings

1 to take part in; to participate

Characters

与

yù

to take part in; to participate

Examples

HSK 5

请所有与会人员签到。

Qǐng suǒyǒu yùhuì rényuán qiāndào.

All meeting attendees please sign in.

HSK 6

这项决定只有少数核心成员与闻。

Zhè xiàng juédìng zhǐyǒu shǎoshù héxīn chéngyuán yùwén.

Only a few core members had insider knowledge of this decision.

HSK 7-9

他参与了这项计划的起草。

Tā cān yù le zhè xiàng jìhuà de qǐcǎo.

He took part in drafting this plan.

Tips

mistakes

Read 与 (4th tone), not the much more common 与, whenever the meaning is 'to take part in'. Saying 参与 as cānyǔ is one of the most frequent learner errors on this character. Test: if you can substitute 参加 in the sentence without breaking the meaning, the 与 is the 4th-tone 'participate' reading.

usage

Bound morpheme only - never appears as a free-standing verb. Lives inside a small set of formal compounds: 参与 (participate), 与会 (attend a meeting), 与闻 (have insider knowledge of). Outside these compounds the character almost always reads 与.

Components

radical

一 yī

one; horizontal baseline

Final long horizontal is the 一 radical and the entry's filing point. It is the surface across which the handing-over happens; the whole simplified silhouette retains just enough of 與 to keep the 'give, together with' meaning.

ideograph

与 yù

give; with (upper fused body)

Three-stroke indivisible cursive contraction acting as a single stylized silhouette; no longer corresponds to a standalone CJK component. Historically the heavily collapsed top of traditional 與's interlocking-hands element, reduced by the 1956 reform to this compact shape suggesting hands handing something across.