You might know the Chinese term 朋友 is the perfect translation of “friend”, but do you know the separate meaning of the two characters? The reason why I mentioned that is because there’s a big difference between them. Anyway, let me explain it in more details.
朋 refers to a group of people who share the same goals, sometimes same beliefs, mainly their benefits and profits are related. They normally come from a same organization or party. So due to some same or close purpose, they stand together. Since they don’t have to be friends, I personally describe them as just “in the same boat”.
友 along the lines of friend’s definition. If a couple of guys are 友, they have interests on the same subjects or devote themselves to the same thing. Due to that, they like each others much all but don’t have to know each others well.
Nevertheless, I feel like it’s weird that the two characters combined as “friend”.
