Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin

Yoon Ha Lee writes:

>I can attest that my dad, a native Korean speaker who has been "fluent" in
>English for many years and has almost no discernible accent, *still*
>sometimes refers to me and my sister as "he" by accident.  <G>  He'll also
>otherwise confuse "he" and she," "him" and "her."  I have other Korean
>relatives who make the same mistake occasionally when they attempt
>English.
Filipinos who are native speakers of Tagalog or other PI languages will
often transpose he and she in speech. There've been countless times i've
heard my grandmother say things like "Eric went to the store today? What
did she buy?", or "Ask Myra what he wants". Obviously it's because Tagalog
and other PI languages have the same word for he and she ;).

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