Lesson Twenty-One: Are You Male Or Female?

Well the last lesson was certainly fun.
This lesson we will be focusing on the differences between the male and female words used when referring to people.

你 ( Ni3 )
妳 ( Ni3 )
他 ( Ta1 )
她 ( Ta1 )

Well looking at these words they have one important thing in common, and that is that both the types of 你 and 妳 have the same sound just as with both types of 他 and  她  share the same sound.
So if you are only learning how to speak in Chinese, and completely ignoring the writing part than the the differences in the writing will not matter.

Now you already know 你 which means ( You ), however what you did not know is that this 你 is used when referring to a man, while 妳 is used to refer to a woman, even though the sound is the same.

The same with 他 ( Ta1 ) ( it means He/Him ), while 她  ( Ta1 ) ( it means She/Her ). This is very important to remember when reading Chinese, as you want to be sure you are reading the material correctly. However, like I said earlier if speaking none of the differences in the characters matter as the same sound will refer to both man and woman.

See you all next time on Zhongwen Study 中文學習。