he/she

Chinese always mix up male and female pronouns and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why. In Chinese, "he" and "she" are both "ta," pronounced in the same tone. The characters are different, but the spoken and pinyin word is the same. So for them, distinguishing between the two is completely new. Even the Chinese I know that I would call fluent in English mess this up. Random fact of the day.