荐 (jiàn): to recommend

Meanings

我向你推荐这本书。

Wǒ xiàng nǐ tuījiàn zhè běn shū.

I recommend this book to you.

老师给我写了一封推荐信。

Lǎoshī gěi wǒ xiě le yì fēng tuījiànxìn.

The teacher wrote me a recommendation letter.

usage

Modern 荐 almost always means recommend, as in 推荐 (to recommend) and the idiom 毛遂自荐 (to volunteer oneself for a task).

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; plant

The grass radical reflects an old sense of 荐 as a grass mat laid out as an offering; from 'present an offering' it shifted to today's 'recommend'.

phonetic

存 cún

to exist; to keep

存 sits below the grass radical and acts as the sound element of the simplified form; it adds no meaning of its own here.

荐 jiàn