"He is not a student."
Translation:他不是学生。
30 Comments
can they put the option for us to see the pinyin too? we can't learn the hanzi in just a snap, especially in sentences
553
In modern Chinese, a character 她 has been created for she. Probably nobody use 他 to represent a female nowadays. But in older literature 他 was used for both genders.
He said that it does now, but in older literature it was used for either gender.
They sound the same, but "He" is "man too", so 人 + 也 = 他 "She" is "female too", so 女 + 也 = 她
Most Chinese characters have a semantic and a phonetic part. The 也 in 她 and 他 is the phonetic part, meaning these characters should probably be pronounced as yě (or something similar in a different tone).
But since there are exceptions to every rule, these make one of the exceptions. There are also others characters with the phonetic part 也 that are in no way pronounced as they “should”. This happens due to phonetic shifts through history.
- 553
Thanks for this message. I wondered what "He too" was about but I realize now... LOL
- 553
也 is just a phonetic part, added to the semantic part of 人 man/person/human.
她 was invented based on 他 when Chinese intellectuals got in touch with western languages more. The first directly related discussions are said to be about a hundred years ago. It is a relatively "young" character in Chinese.
About the phonetic property of 也 ye, we can find closer relevance to 他 in Cantonese. They are 也 ya and 他 ta respectively. Cantonese usually preserves to a larger extent old phonetic properties. Many poets that no longer rhyme in Mandarin, still rhyme in Cantonese.
Ta in pinyin is similar for both he and she but when you write in chinese characters they are different: he is 他 and she is 她
Yes, Chinese only has one word for both; context would be necessary to establish if it means he or she.
- 771
While "he" and "she" are pronounced the same, they have different characters.
As far as I know, this is how it goes: 他 is masculine while 她 is feminine (he, him-she, her) both are to be pronounced tā.
- 553
When just speaking about a person is a student or not, 一个 is actually redundant in Chinese; We usually add 一个 only when we want to be specific about the quantity, while 他 can only be 1 person 一个 is not necessary.
Is it just me or does 不 now sound as "bu"，when in previous section (foods) it was pronounced much softer, almost as "pu"？
