She or He?

Do you know "he" and "she" are different in Chinese writing but not in pronunciation? This is hard for many American to believe. In a conversation in Chinese, you never know if the person being the conversation topic is a man or woman, unless you are told or you ask. What a hassle! How could Chinese people bear with this? you may ask. Well, the reason I could guess is that information may not be regarded as being absolute important or necessary historically in our culture. Or that is the way of our language. No matter we like it or not, we carry it with us everywhere we go, even when we speak different language. In English, "he"or "him" seems our usual random pickup word when we talk about a third person.

So when you have a conversation with a Chinese whose first language is not English, possibly the "guy" he or she is talking about using "he" or "him" may not be a man. You don't want to find that out until the end of the hour long conversation. If you have doubt, don't be shy to ask for a clarification in the beginning.

中国人讲话时“他”“她“不分让美国人很难理解。 如果讲话的人不说你也不问，你很难猜测被讲的人是男还是女。这岂不是很麻烦！对这两个字没有读音的区别也许和中国的文化历史有关，被讲之人的性别也许并没有被认为是绝对不可少的信息。 总之，这就是我们的语言。这种语言习惯根深蒂固，甚至表现在当我们用另一种语言进行对话的时候。大部分人在讲英文时无论谈到的人是男是女，通常会不经思考地用“他”作代词。

这就是为什么在你用英文和一个中国人对话的时候，你听到的“他”不一定是个男的， 尤其当英文不是这个中国人的第一语言的时候。如果你有疑问就应赶紧问清楚，千万不要等到和对方谈了一个小时的“他”，到最后才发现“他”是个女的。