赞扬
zàn yáng · HSK 7
to praise
👏 赞 praise + 扬 raise up = to lift someone with public praise
赞 means to commend or approve; 扬 means to raise or broadcast. Together they mean praising someone openly, raising their reputation up high. Sounds like zan-yang: a clap (zan) that you yang-raise loud.
扬 — hand radical 扌 + 昜 (rising sun)
扬 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the hand radical 扌 gives the meaning (an action done with the hand), while 昜 (sun rising over the horizon) supplies the sound 'yáng'. The original sense was to raise or lift up, which broadened to 'spread, scatter, make known'. The modern simplified form replaces the older 揚.