The Wrong Pronouns Always Drives Me Crazy!

[Ziggy]

My wife, step-daughter, and son are constantly having problems with saying the proper pronouns.

They constantly say:

he instead of she,

she instead of he,

his instead of hers,

hers instead of his, and so on.

I realize that it's difficult for them, but it drives me nuts! I'm constantly correcting them, and I even created and printed charts that say things which include:

He drives his car.

She drives her car.

It seems like such a simple thing to learn, but why on earth is it so difficult for Filipinos to learn this 

 

 

[baronapart]

You have to pick the hill you want to die on. This isn't mine ;-)

[Mike J]

2 hours ago, Lieutenant Dan said:

It seems like such a simple thing to learn, but why on earth is it so difficult for Filipinos to learn this 

The ending vowel of many words here show whether the subject is male or female.  I have even read news articles where the pronoun shifts from "he" to "she" and you begin to wonder if the subject of the article was male or female.

[RBM]

have heard there is no gender in the local dialect, what you are unable to change just leave it or go stark raving......... 

[Kingpin]

4 hours ago, Lieutenant Dan said:

It seems like such a simple thing to learn, but why on earth is it so difficult for Filipinos to learn this 

The same reaction we all had, it doesn't make any sense that they can speak English, but then they make the most basic childish mistake, mixing up 'he' and 'she'.

Until you learn the reason:

1 hour ago, RBM said:

there is no gender in the local dialect

I've been here so long that I get it wrong now too, they broke my brain.

[Dave Hounddriver]

In today's world, assuming anyone's gender is apparently wrong.  Thus the Philippine practice of NOT assigning gender in their speech is currently more correct than our old fashioned interpretation. 

It gets tricky.  I am in Canada and I shopped at a dollar store.  The clerk seemed to me to be a man trying to be a lady.  It is so easy to say "him" when "she" is presenting as female.  I dunno what to say anymore.  Good luck with teaching the locals when our own countries cannot decide what is "right"

EDIT:  It is the Philippine practice of NOT using "he" or "she" in their speech that I refer to.  Of course they still have a word for boy and a word for girl.  I edit this post instead of replying as I would hate to take away Kingpin's need to have the last word.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Dave Hounddriver

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

In today's world, assuming anyone's gender is apparently wrong.  Thus the Philippine practice of NOT assigning gender in their speech is currently more correct than our old fashioned interpretation. 

It gets tricky.  I am in Canada and I shopped at a dollar store.  The clerk seemed to me to be a man trying to be a lady.  It is so easy to say "him" when "she" is presenting as female.  I dunno what to say anymore.  Good luck with teaching the locals when our own countries cannot decide what is "right"

To be honest, it's nothing to do with being PC or confusion over gender, it's just down to mother-tongue interference.

And it's not just a thing here - in Hong Kong it was way worse. 

[Possum]

They apparently learn this in their English classes in school as whenever I ask where they learned English they say,"At school."

[hk blues]

38 minutes ago, Greglm said:

They apparently learn this in their English classes in school as whenever I ask where they learned English they say,"At school."

They learn to incorrectly use pronouns?  

[Possum]

7 minutes ago, hk blues said:

They learn to incorrectly use pronouns?  

Don't know where they learn to incorrectly learn to use pronouns but everyone the ones I've asked said they learn their English in school

My wife was taught English as a required course in school. When asked about the quality of English instruction at the public school she went to she rolled her eyes. She said,"They teach English but the explanations are in Tagalog and some concepts just don't translate well." Which might explain why so many speak English somewhat but understand spoken English not so well. For many the goal is to learn just enough to qualify for an OFW job/