When Chinese native speakers talk to one another, the grammatical concept of “sex separation” simply doesn’t exist in their heads. (Or, more precisely, it doesn’t exist on a subconscious level in their heads. And it is on a subconscious level where all language patters are formed milliseconds before they are pronounced as words.) And when the Chinese start talking English, it should be very difficult for them to introduce this concept of sex separation and start using it when talking. (Especially, when talking quickly.) Once again, I’m talking about the subconscious level only here. The problem is that the he/she distinction is a very basic grammar, something that we apply automatically, without thinking, without concentrating on it, no matter if we speak our native language or a foreign one. So I guess the Chinese make this mistake most when they speak English quickly, automatically. That is, when the absence of the concept of sex separation in their minds takes control!

I wonder if my attempt to give an explanation is useful for somebody. This is my first post on this website, but I follow the topics and discussions here for quite a while and I’d like to say thank you to Albert for keeping this website going and for providing such an interesting content for all of us to enjoy!

Your question about what leads to the perennial “he/she” mistakes has plagued me for these past 4.5 years I’ve been in China. I still don’t have a good answer for that. All I know is the answer is not: “In Chinese there is only ‘ta’ so it’s difficult to remember to say ‘he’ or ‘she’ when speaking English.” That’s an excuse, but not a good explanation There are so many other things that are different between English and Chinese that students don’t have a problem with.

If you find the answer please tell all of us. We’re all dying to know.

What’s even more interesting to me is whether this gender confusion is as taboo/funny in Chinese as in English. In English if I make a slip and accidentally refer to a man as “she” or vice versa, it’s something to be quickly corrected. Since spoken Chinese derives distinction from context, are gender mixups more common and less of a faux pas?

It’s also quite possible that as a mere 1st year learner, I just don’t have enough experience to know that gender confusion isn’t a big deal (any more than it is in English) for people more fluent than myself!

Of course, if you were French you’d have a different excuse – the equivalent possessive pronoun is dependent on the gender of the object, not the subject.

As for “my family are” – common usage here in the UK is my family is – I’ve not heard people generally use the plural, but then the debate on that one is for another day/blog!

(Also, there are some other grammatical irregularities, such as “he will spend the next few weeks to meet…” and “She will attend in a local school” which indicate that the article was written by someone whose first language is not English)