He, She, and It

Chinese speakers consistently make mistakes with "he," "she," and "it" when speaking English. I have unsuccessfully been trying to understand this phenomenon since I came here, and I think reason must come down to the psychology of language.

In Chinese, the three pronouns are all pronounced the same way: ta1. They have three very clearly different characters, though: 他，她，它. I can't understand why all Chinese people would mess these up, because don't they picture the character in their minds as they speak? This question has led me to believe that Chinese people do not associate spoken Chinese with written Chinese; when they speak they do not picture the characters in their minds. I therefore assume that when they speak and say "he," "she," or "it," they do not differentiate between them. So, when they switch to English, they still do not differentiate between these pronouns.

Since I started learning Chinese, I have come to think of it as two different languages: the spoken language represented by pinyin and the written language represented by characters that give no clues for how to pronounce the word. Sometimes I encounter a problem where I attach the English word to the Chinese character. So I see a character and know the meaning, but I forget the pinyin and therefore cannot say the word in Chinese. In reverse, but not so much of a problem, is when I know how to say a word but have never seen the character so cannot recognize or write it.

I am beginning to believe that all literate Chinese separate the spoken and written languages. Because they don't picture the characters as they speak, they may only use the characters for reading. It would be more than possible for some or most Chinese to read characters and think of the meaning of the word without the pinyin pronunciation crossing their minds.

And then, what about those who are illiterate? How do their minds process the language?

These concepts are difficult for me to grasp and I obviously need to do some research- but the Chinese firewall keeps blocking me from viewing research articles! I am fascinated with this subject and I wanted to share my thoughts on the topic.