The Chinese word 交友 (jiāoyǒu), meaning "to make friends," is a compound formed by combining two independent characters: 交 (jiāo), which carries the meaning "to associate" or "to interact," and 友 (yǒu), which means "friend." This structure follows a common verb-object relationship, where the first character 交 acts as the action and the second character 友 serves as the object of that action, literally translating to "interact with friends" or "forge friendship." It exemplifies how modern Chinese frequently creates precise terms by logically pairing existing meaningful syllables.