扬

揚
yáng
verb HSK 7-9 #7,093

Meanings

  1. 1 to raise
  2. 2 to scatter
  3. 3 to publicize

Examples

HSK 5
Wǒmen yào fāyáng chuántǒng.
We should carry forward tradition.
HSK 6
Yángcháng-bìduǎn.
Play to your strengths and avoid weaknesses.

Tips

usage
Common in 发扬 (fāyáng, to develop/promote) and 表扬 (biǎoyáng, to praise).

Components

radical
扌 shǒu
hand (left-side form of 手)
Left hand radical - the indexing component. 扬 means to raise, scatter, broadcast - all hand actions. Lifting a flag, scattering grain, raising a voice, raising someone's reputation: every sense of 扬 traces back to this hand-lifting motion. Same family: 打 (hit), 拿 (take), 推 (push), 抓 (grab).
phonetic
昜 yáng
rising sun; bright; positive (yang)
Right side is a heavily contracted echo of 昜 (the original 9-stroke phonetic, which still survives in the traditional 揚). The simplification reform reduced those 9 strokes to a 3-stroke wave, keeping the sound (yáng = yáng, no drift) but losing the sun-rising-over-horizon picture. Same simplified phonetic appears in 杨 (poplar), 场 (field), 汤 (soup), 烫 (scald).

Stroke Order

扬 yáng