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In Chinese there are a lot of conjunctions:

与,和,就,跟,同,并,及,乃(廼迺),而,也,共,又,亦,且,兼

all of which are usually and lazily translated as English "and".

Question: I wonder which of those glyphs is definitely exclusively "with" and not "and"?


Apendix:

The difference between "and" and "with" can be seen in the example:

A and B go to school.

That is A can go withiout B or with it. It's a statment that A go to school, B goes too, but it's not implied that they do it TOGETHER holding hands.

A with B go to school.

Now, here it's stressed that they do it together and not alone.

As a result "with" is more specific than "and". "And" can include "with" but not vice-versa.

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Some characters need to have the meaning in combinations

与,和,同 is similar, you can say "我与你一起去", or "我和你", "我同你"
"和" is most frequent. "与" is slightly formal.
"同" sounds like literature or ancient Chinese, but you can still use it.
Here "一" also means "together" but you can only use it in "一起", "一同"
unless you are writing ancient Chinese.

"跟" means follow. "我跟你去" you can think it as "and", but it's more like follow.
It's also used as together orally, but "follow" is the source of the meaning.

也,亦 are more used as conj. mainly for "same".
You can use "你去,我也去" or "你去,我亦去", but "亦" sounds very ancient

"而且" is usually used together as prep. or conj., to connect facts:
"这杆笔便宜而且好用" "这杆笔便宜而好用" "这杆笔便宜且好用"

就,乃,共 is mainly used in ancient Chinese as "and".
Frequently in ancient Chinese, 就 means approach and 乃 means then
They are still uncommonly used as "and" even in ancient Chinese
共 usually means share or total, it's sometimes used "and"
but "共同" is used in modern Chinese as adv., usually formal: "我和你共同前往"

兼 is mainly used as prep. to connect titles in modern Chinese, meaning "also".

及 is usually formal, and used as prep. in third person: "李雷(以)及韩梅梅参观了学校"

To make it short:
和 -> and prep.
而,且 -> and conj.
兼,也,亦 -> also
跟 -> follow
及,与 -> with 同,一,共 -> together

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  • Thanks, but I wonder is there a glyth with meaning "with" but exclusivly so? I can't find any article on the subject, so I recon western languages are special in this regard. For expample, in English 'with' is a 'with' exclusivly so.
    – coobit
    Commented Apr 7, 2019 at 17:25

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