In this lesson we are going to learn four pronouns: he, she, it and they.

If you have talked with a Chinese person, you probably have noticed that we frequently make the mistake of messing up pronouns. We would say something like: I met a lady today and he said…..

Because in our mind we do not differ “he” or “she”, because they pronounce exaclty the same in Chinese: tā.

So if a Chinese person refers to a third person with pronouns, you would not know the person’s gender, though you often could learn it from the context.

Though the pronunciation is the same, the written characters are different. 他 tā, he, has the person radical on its left side while 她 tā, she, has woman radical on its left side.

他是一个很好的人。Tā shì yīgè hěn hǎo de rén: he is a very good person.

她喜欢吃苹果。 Tā xǐhuān chī píngguǒ: she likes to eat apples.

它 tā, it, has the roof radical on the top, and it’s said the bottom is the shape of a snake or a worm: imagine an ancient person found a long snake under their roof and screamed out: tā!

它是一只狗。Tā shì yī zhī gǒu: it is a dog.

我 wǒ–the Chinese word for “I”–is defensive: the right part of this word is a weapon. Perhaps at that time of kinship and harsh living, one had to defend oneself. Tā ( 他，她，它)–the word for “he, she, it”–also means “others” whom you had to defend yourself against.

他们 tā men, they, you could see that here we used “he” 他, in this plural form to mean two or more people, unless of course when every one of this group is female, then you use 她们. In spoke form though, this matters very little, as they pronounce the same.

他们爱唱歌。Tāmen ài chànggē: they love singing.

So in this lesson we learned four pronouns: he, she, it, they: 他 tā，她 tā，它 tā，他们tā men.

他是一个男人。Tā shì yīgè nánrén: he is a man.

她是一个女人。Tā shì yīgè nǚrén: she is a woman.

它是一只猫。Tā shì yīgè nǚrén: it is a cat.

他们是中国人。Tāmen shì zhōngguó rén: they are Chinese.