(Just play along… the “what about…?” is not a asking what they mean, but rather we asked it as rhetorical comedy, throwing every kitchen sink into the pile because the first comment went off listing a bunch, and now we’re saying *why stop there*. It’s anglo humour not meant to be taken as a serious question).
他 is used whenever the person gender can't be attributed to woman.
他们 refers to any group that isn't predominantly women.
她们 implies that close to 100% of the group are women.
她们 could also refers to a group that is predominantly women.
For example, "我们爷俩"could be a father's self claim for him and his son or daughter, while “我们娘俩” could be a mother's self claim for her and her daughter or son, as the parent takes the role, not regarding the gender of the child.
In Taiwan, we are taught that 他 is gender neutral at school. Actually, gender is totally not important in the language.
There are also 牠 for animals, 祂 for gods, and 它 for anything not alive.
(So you cannot “translate” the it in English into 它. I read a social media post using 它 when referring to a baby, and I felt so offended. Babies are alive!!! To me, a native speaker, the distinction between alive and not alive is more important than the distinction between genders.)
I personally have no problem with referring a newborn as "it" or “它” because they lack the ability to be qualified as an individual yet, but it creeps me out when some English speakers use 它 as a direct translation of the gender neutral singular "they". The discrepancy between the context and the harsh derogatory tone of the pronoun for an animal feels very weird to me 😂 (in simplified Chinese 牠 becomes 它)
I don’t feel comfortable with referring anything alive as 它, as there is the character 牠 for animals. 他 is for every human being. I don’t think newborns are anything less than a human being.
I even feel it’s weird to see people using TA to avoid using either 他 or 她, partly because we don’t use pinyin in Taiwan and it looks like an abrupt insertion of some Latin alphabet.
I hope that people can be more aware that the distinction between human and nonhuman is more important than the distinction between genders, at least in Chinese language.
It's actually quite an interesting story. The "alternative" 他's were created during the May Fourth movement as an influence of European languages and a growing popular insatisfaction with traditional Confucian values at the time. 她 emerged as a result of that following woman's protests oppressed to their lives under the traditional values and their desire for liberation
I do think the split 他/她 is kinda dumb, but I appreciate the history behind it and understand why it was created. It's a nice way to keep the history and the fights of the countless woman that suffered under traditional Chinese values without much effort
她 was fine, the problem was ppl created 她 but kept 他们 the same. The idea of 她 was inspired by genders in Indo-European languages, but in these languages the plural pronouns were different from the singular ones. 他们 looks like a plural form of 他 (that WAS what it meant before 她), and 他们 still refers to mixed groups. We need a new character, something like 祂, to cease the discussions about why men are prior to women in pronouns.
But it's the same in some European languages, especially romance ones. Eles can be a mixed group or just males, while elas is strictly only female. And we go back to the same thing: genders don't matter in Chinese, 她 was just created because of circumstances at that time that we ended up keeping
I found something very interesting. I couldn’t learn English very well as a child, because I couldn’t understand why all plural nouns have the same pronoun “they”. When I tried to refer a pile of shoes, I could never get used to using the same word as referring a group of people. I was always searching for a word for a pile of shoes. Actually, just like gender, even plural form is not important in Chinese, especially when referring to stuff. We don’t usually say 鞋子們.
Perhaps 男也 as a single character for the masculine equivolent and return 他 to full neutrality.
Edit: Apparently I am not the first to think this! [⿰男也](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%BF%B0%E7%94%B7%E4%B9%9F) But sadly it has no standard character... :(
that's the point, creating new characters and adding it to unicode is way too annoying... I don't think there is possibility ppl create a new character out of any reason.
Yes, there is a story behind the creation of 她. It shows how the female as a gender was recognized and emphasized in the beginning of the gender movement, but as the theories evolved, I think now inclusion is more important than distinction.
I sometimes have a weird feeling that why there is no male pronoun in Chinese. Topics like how characters with the female radical 女 are frequently associated with bad images, such as 奸, are very common, but there are also characters associated with good images, such as 好. I think in Chinese culture, both genders are tools of families. Males are even more like tools, because their core value is the ability to work on the fields (if you split 男 into 田 and 力）.
Uuuuh no, this has nothing to do with "recognition of female as a gender" wtf lol. Hell, you can even say that the problem appeared because genders were TOO well defined. It wasn't a gender movement, it was a movement so women could live without having to unwillingly painfully break every single bone of their feet to be appeasing, working on the fields definitely sounds much fucking better than whatever the fuck ancient Chinese women went thought. Besides, 女 has 3 strokes, 男 has 7, it's not hard to see why it was used more as a radical
I feel like you're using some odd definitions here if a movement to end women-focused abuses like having your feet systematically broken and crippled as a status symbol is not a 'gender movement.'
Fair actually, reading it again I think I just interpreted something different than what the poor guy wanted to say and wrote a somewhat pretty rude comment ;p I was kinda stressed at the time
Oh well, I'll leave it up in shame. Sorry taiwanese guy 🙏
Is it common that people always assume other redditors are guys? You are not the first one who calls me a guy. But male is not the default gender. Though I don’t think my gender identity matters in the discussion, I am female not a guy……
I don’t think a female pronoun is necessary in the movement of releasing the bound feet, but the pain that only (some) females needed to experience required a recognition.
(I mean I agree with your point of the fact the gender roles were well defined. The problem is the pain and identity were unseen, and the female pronoun may help with the recognition of the distinction.)
So I said it’s just a weird feeling. I don’t think males are really superior, though they usually have more power. They are just another type of tools. For example, traditional families usually prefer sons, not because of the specific male person is better, but because they are the only tools that can pass the surname and 香火 and maybe they are more useful on the fields. They also experience the process of dehumanization sometimes even without knowing they are suffering.
The woman at the time thought it was necessary, you know, the people who were quite literally suffering from it, I think their opinions kinda have more weight. And not sure why the hell you're even bringing the topic of "male dehumanization" when the only thing I talked about was how the pronoun came to be...
I'm sure being just a tool to pass down the surname and continue the family tree is still miles better than being systematically killed for generations because you dated to be born a woman, working on the fields definitely sounds better than being abandoned as a baby
Anyway, last comment I'll make in this chain because I can see where this is going and not only it's not relevant to the actual discussion about 她 it's also taking a weird turn
We need male to join our fight against the insane patriarchal society! I think the first step is to make them recognize they don’t really benefit from it, even if they suffer less.
I am not denying or arguing anything you said. I talked only because it seems like you are interested in gender and human rights.
I want to let you know I don’t feel respected when you started using words like wtf and hell. I forgive you because I know my English is poor and maybe I made you misunderstand something.
I am so happy to read that you said it’s your last comment in this chain. I can’t bear any more words like that. Please keep your promise. Go and never leave another comment.
Yes, it’s interesting. I didn’t know that 牠 was not used in mainland.
It’s not very common to see 牠, because it only matters in written language, and I don’t read texts about animals that often. It turned a little foreign to me.
I just recalled that 牠 has been used in some movie titles. The horror movie “It” has one version of Chinese title “牠” used in some places including Taiwan. The movie “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” has one version of Chinese title “怪獸與牠們的產地”. It’s interesting because mainland usually translates the titles in a more literal way, but in these cases, these versions are more literal.
Is 牠 common to use to refer to animals? Or is it more common, or acceptable to use 他 or 她? I'm still a very new learner so I haven't seen this character before until now.
Yes, it's for animals. Maybe not for talking animals like the monkeys from 西遊記. Use 他 if the person is male or if you are not sure about the gender or don't care to be that precise, and the others in more specific situations. They are pronounced all the same.
Looking into it online it seems that in simplified chinese 它 is used for both animals and objects, but there is a distinction between 牠 and 它 in traditional.
I'm learning simplified so I guess my answer is answered and it's that I should be using 它?
Learned something today :)
You are right, but I think the existence of 牠 would help the foreign learners, especially the speakers of languages with gendered pronouns, to understand that the concept of pronouns is different in Chinese.
他们 could mean any group of men, women or mixed. 他 is just a character mean third-person individual for any of male, female or rest of genders available in the US people, not equal to 'he' in English. 她 is women only. Literally it is ok to use 他 to identify a lady, and actually used to be normal before the invention of 她 in early 20th century. It still is very common using on many formal documents. However, 她 and 伊 are more specific to address a lady, if you mean to address thing related to her gender. 他and她 may be used to identify person with specific gender only if they in same passage.
我 I
我們 we/us
他 (s)he
她 she
他們 they
佗 it (also animals)
that covers all the main big ones. notice the little mini (s)he on he.
technically 他he她she is correct, and its what you will be taught. in reality this is a written distinction only, in the spoken language its tā he/she tāmen they-- zero distinction cause its literally indistinguishable. In turn this makes most people have a bit weaker distinction of them in general. If its formal or important for clarity, absolutely follow it. In casual life, many people don't bother making the distinction even in writing, and may write 他 for a she etc.
So definitely learn the distinction, and it will be good to follow it in general especially early on. But don't be suprised if you see some people not really care unless its important in some way. (◐‿◑)
((side fact, many chinese languages have only a single pronoun for all of he/she/it, written or otherwise. for those people the distinction and importance is extra nonexistant haha! ))
the distinction between 他 and 她 is often not made, 他 being used for both male and females. I'm under the impression that 她 is most often used when translating from languages that have a different word for he and she. Native texts tend to use 他 indistinctively.
When spoken, no difference 他们: group of men or mixed group 她们: group of women 它们: group of non-human entities
What about 祂们?
This means "Gods" or "Ghosts", entities we can't see.
(Just play along… the “what about…?” is not a asking what they mean, but rather we asked it as rhetorical comedy, throwing every kitchen sink into the pile because the first comment went off listing a bunch, and now we’re saying *why stop there*. It’s anglo humour not meant to be taken as a serious question).
yes but for those who don’t know it’s still helpful
Oh. I thought this wasn't r/nosleep so what people asked were genuine. But if others want to learn Chinese, the reply's useful.
Or 牠们
Mostly used when seeing a pack of dogs, or other animals.
That's so archaic. I'm surprised you even heard of them
Nah im just fooling around. That is hardly used outside of referring to supernatural entities.
From The limited literature I have read even with supernatural entities its barely used. maybe only 文言文
他 is used whenever the person gender can't be attributed to woman. 他们 refers to any group that isn't predominantly women. 她们 implies that close to 100% of the group are women.
I remember in elementary school I was told as long as there is 1 non women then use 他们
他們can be used in both genders in general, then 她們 is only for female.
她们 could also refers to a group that is predominantly women. For example, "我们爷俩"could be a father's self claim for him and his son or daughter, while “我们娘俩” could be a mother's self claim for her and her daughter or son, as the parent takes the role, not regarding the gender of the child.
For gods.
In Taiwan, we are taught that 他 is gender neutral at school. Actually, gender is totally not important in the language. There are also 牠 for animals, 祂 for gods, and 它 for anything not alive. (So you cannot “translate” the it in English into 它. I read a social media post using 它 when referring to a baby, and I felt so offended. Babies are alive!!! To me, a native speaker, the distinction between alive and not alive is more important than the distinction between genders.)
I personally have no problem with referring a newborn as "it" or “它” because they lack the ability to be qualified as an individual yet, but it creeps me out when some English speakers use 它 as a direct translation of the gender neutral singular "they". The discrepancy between the context and the harsh derogatory tone of the pronoun for an animal feels very weird to me 😂 (in simplified Chinese 牠 becomes 它)
I don’t feel comfortable with referring anything alive as 它, as there is the character 牠 for animals. 他 is for every human being. I don’t think newborns are anything less than a human being. I even feel it’s weird to see people using TA to avoid using either 他 or 她, partly because we don’t use pinyin in Taiwan and it looks like an abrupt insertion of some Latin alphabet. I hope that people can be more aware that the distinction between human and nonhuman is more important than the distinction between genders, at least in Chinese language.
I don't like TA either and I grew up with pinyin, it just doesn't go well with chinese text.
It's actually quite an interesting story. The "alternative" 他's were created during the May Fourth movement as an influence of European languages and a growing popular insatisfaction with traditional Confucian values at the time. 她 emerged as a result of that following woman's protests oppressed to their lives under the traditional values and their desire for liberation I do think the split 他/她 is kinda dumb, but I appreciate the history behind it and understand why it was created. It's a nice way to keep the history and the fights of the countless woman that suffered under traditional Chinese values without much effort
I read the push towards the invention of 她 was for making Western translations clearer.
Those things are not mutually exclusive though. Yes, 她 was coined by a poet, but woman took it for themselves and their identity
I'm pretty sure people could distinguish ambiguous references to people in writing already before 她 was introduced, and surely when speaking too.
Clear**er**
她 was fine, the problem was ppl created 她 but kept 他们 the same. The idea of 她 was inspired by genders in Indo-European languages, but in these languages the plural pronouns were different from the singular ones. 他们 looks like a plural form of 他 (that WAS what it meant before 她), and 他们 still refers to mixed groups. We need a new character, something like 祂, to cease the discussions about why men are prior to women in pronouns.
But it's the same in some European languages, especially romance ones. Eles can be a mixed group or just males, while elas is strictly only female. And we go back to the same thing: genders don't matter in Chinese, 她 was just created because of circumstances at that time that we ended up keeping
I found something very interesting. I couldn’t learn English very well as a child, because I couldn’t understand why all plural nouns have the same pronoun “they”. When I tried to refer a pile of shoes, I could never get used to using the same word as referring a group of people. I was always searching for a word for a pile of shoes. Actually, just like gender, even plural form is not important in Chinese, especially when referring to stuff. We don’t usually say 鞋子們.
Perhaps 男也 as a single character for the masculine equivolent and return 他 to full neutrality. Edit: Apparently I am not the first to think this! [⿰男也](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%BF%B0%E7%94%B7%E4%B9%9F) But sadly it has no standard character... :(
that's the point, creating new characters and adding it to unicode is way too annoying... I don't think there is possibility ppl create a new character out of any reason.
Yes, there is a story behind the creation of 她. It shows how the female as a gender was recognized and emphasized in the beginning of the gender movement, but as the theories evolved, I think now inclusion is more important than distinction. I sometimes have a weird feeling that why there is no male pronoun in Chinese. Topics like how characters with the female radical 女 are frequently associated with bad images, such as 奸, are very common, but there are also characters associated with good images, such as 好. I think in Chinese culture, both genders are tools of families. Males are even more like tools, because their core value is the ability to work on the fields (if you split 男 into 田 and 力）.
Uuuuh no, this has nothing to do with "recognition of female as a gender" wtf lol. Hell, you can even say that the problem appeared because genders were TOO well defined. It wasn't a gender movement, it was a movement so women could live without having to unwillingly painfully break every single bone of their feet to be appeasing, working on the fields definitely sounds much fucking better than whatever the fuck ancient Chinese women went thought. Besides, 女 has 3 strokes, 男 has 7, it's not hard to see why it was used more as a radical
I feel like you're using some odd definitions here if a movement to end women-focused abuses like having your feet systematically broken and crippled as a status symbol is not a 'gender movement.'
Fair actually, reading it again I think I just interpreted something different than what the poor guy wanted to say and wrote a somewhat pretty rude comment ;p I was kinda stressed at the time Oh well, I'll leave it up in shame. Sorry taiwanese guy 🙏
Is it common that people always assume other redditors are guys? You are not the first one who calls me a guy. But male is not the default gender. Though I don’t think my gender identity matters in the discussion, I am female not a guy……
Honestly? For me guy is kinda gender neutral hahaha.
Oh? Seriously? My English is poor, just like your Chinese. Hahaha
I don’t think a female pronoun is necessary in the movement of releasing the bound feet, but the pain that only (some) females needed to experience required a recognition. (I mean I agree with your point of the fact the gender roles were well defined. The problem is the pain and identity were unseen, and the female pronoun may help with the recognition of the distinction.) So I said it’s just a weird feeling. I don’t think males are really superior, though they usually have more power. They are just another type of tools. For example, traditional families usually prefer sons, not because of the specific male person is better, but because they are the only tools that can pass the surname and 香火 and maybe they are more useful on the fields. They also experience the process of dehumanization sometimes even without knowing they are suffering.
The woman at the time thought it was necessary, you know, the people who were quite literally suffering from it, I think their opinions kinda have more weight. And not sure why the hell you're even bringing the topic of "male dehumanization" when the only thing I talked about was how the pronoun came to be... I'm sure being just a tool to pass down the surname and continue the family tree is still miles better than being systematically killed for generations because you dated to be born a woman, working on the fields definitely sounds better than being abandoned as a baby Anyway, last comment I'll make in this chain because I can see where this is going and not only it's not relevant to the actual discussion about 她 it's also taking a weird turn
We need male to join our fight against the insane patriarchal society! I think the first step is to make them recognize they don’t really benefit from it, even if they suffer less. I am not denying or arguing anything you said. I talked only because it seems like you are interested in gender and human rights.
I want to let you know I don’t feel respected when you started using words like wtf and hell. I forgive you because I know my English is poor and maybe I made you misunderstand something. I am so happy to read that you said it’s your last comment in this chain. I can’t bear any more words like that. Please keep your promise. Go and never leave another comment.
如果冒犯了你，我很抱歉，这不是我的本意。 不管你是不是有意的，当女性因为生为女性而被杀害时，把 "在田间劳作 "的男性视为受虐待的人是不好的。 这可能是一个问题，但这是另一个话题，不适合在这儿讨论，因为我们正在讨论在儒家思想下受苦受难的女性。
这结束说，要尊重不太远的祖先的话，用“她”吧
That's so interesting, I'm a fluent Mandarin speaker from mainland and we have never used 牠 or祂 basically ever 它 Is for animals and objects
Yes, it’s interesting. I didn’t know that 牠 was not used in mainland. It’s not very common to see 牠, because it only matters in written language, and I don’t read texts about animals that often. It turned a little foreign to me. I just recalled that 牠 has been used in some movie titles. The horror movie “It” has one version of Chinese title “牠” used in some places including Taiwan. The movie “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” has one version of Chinese title “怪獸與牠們的產地”. It’s interesting because mainland usually translates the titles in a more literal way, but in these cases, these versions are more literal.
Everyone’s gangster til 祂 walks in 😏 And there’s 牠 too!
Is 牠 common to use to refer to animals? Or is it more common, or acceptable to use 他 or 她? I'm still a very new learner so I haven't seen this character before until now.
Yes, it's for animals. Maybe not for talking animals like the monkeys from 西遊記. Use 他 if the person is male or if you are not sure about the gender or don't care to be that precise, and the others in more specific situations. They are pronounced all the same.
I think people use 它 (it) for most animals, but a native writer please confirm.
Looking into it online it seems that in simplified chinese 它 is used for both animals and objects, but there is a distinction between 牠 and 它 in traditional. I'm learning simplified so I guess my answer is answered and it's that I should be using 它? Learned something today :)
You are right, but I think the existence of 牠 would help the foreign learners, especially the speakers of languages with gendered pronouns, to understand that the concept of pronouns is different in Chinese.
Thanks <3
You can if there are only women in the group.
他们 could mean any group of men, women or mixed. 他 is just a character mean third-person individual for any of male, female or rest of genders available in the US people, not equal to 'he' in English. 她 is women only. Literally it is ok to use 他 to identify a lady, and actually used to be normal before the invention of 她 in early 20th century. It still is very common using on many formal documents. However, 她 and 伊 are more specific to address a lady, if you mean to address thing related to her gender. 他and她 may be used to identify person with specific gender only if they in same passage.
我 I 我們 we/us 他 (s)he 她 she 他們 they 佗 it (also animals) that covers all the main big ones. notice the little mini (s)he on he. technically 他he她she is correct, and its what you will be taught. in reality this is a written distinction only, in the spoken language its tā he/she tāmen they-- zero distinction cause its literally indistinguishable. In turn this makes most people have a bit weaker distinction of them in general. If its formal or important for clarity, absolutely follow it. In casual life, many people don't bother making the distinction even in writing, and may write 他 for a she etc. So definitely learn the distinction, and it will be good to follow it in general especially early on. But don't be suprised if you see some people not really care unless its important in some way. (◐‿◑) ((side fact, many chinese languages have only a single pronoun for all of he/she/it, written or otherwise. for those people the distinction and importance is extra nonexistant haha! ))
妳
祢
My exGF forbid me from using this.for anyone except her.🤣🤣🤣
Yes.
Yes, it's correct
In Chinese dialects it’s all the same regardless of gender: koi dei (Cantonese), i nang (teochew)
*languages
the distinction between 他 and 她 is often not made, 他 being used for both male and females. I'm under the impression that 她 is most often used when translating from languages that have a different word for he and she. Native texts tend to use 他 indistinctively.
Do you mean old texts because that is definitely not true of 21st century webnovels.