Even though they are all pronounced the same, Chinese actually has distinct characters to refer to males, females, animals and objects. In speech you’ll never run into any problems just saying “tā”, but when writing it’s important that you use the correct character.
Here are the different characters along with some simple example sentences that should be easy for beginners to learn how to use each word:
tā hěn lǎnduò
He’s very lazy
tā shì wǒ de nǚpéngyǒu
She’s my girlfriend
wǒ de māo fēng le, tā yīzhí pǎo lái pǎo qù
My cat is crazy, it keeps running back and forth
zhè shì wǒ xīn mǎi de T xù, tā hěn shūfú
This is my new t-shirt, it’s really comfortable
Worth noting is that in simplified Chinese 牠 is replaced by 它, and while 她 is still be used it is often the case that 他 is used. The latter is also true for Taiwan, and 他, like 你, is a catchall for when you aren’t sure if the person being referred to is male or female. Basically – if in doubt, use 他.
In addition to the tā above, there is one more, the tā that is used to describe a god:
This is another tā that isn’t used in simplified Chinese, so to see examples of it you’d have to read the bible in traditional Chinese. The example I’ve used here is from a Youtube video I found:
tā wèi wǒ kāi lù
God Will Make A Way (for me)