An Example of Awkward Chinese

While looking through my daughter's current Chinese textbook, I noticed this lesson. Here is the text of the entire lesson:

放学了，爸爸在车上告诉我：“下午有一个小朋友来我们家。”我问：“他是谁？”爸爸说：“是云云。”云云是我的好朋友，我听了，真开心。

Literally:

When my school is over, Dad tells me in the car: "A little friend come to our house this afternoon." I ask: "Who is he?" Dad says: "Is Yunyun." Yunyun is my good friend, I hear that, very glad.

(The English version is intentionally awkward.)

In such a simple and short passage, there are one error and two bad ambiguities:

1. Error: There should be a period instead of comma after the sentence 云云是我的好朋友.It's quite a common mistake in Chinese writing to over-use comma through an entire paragraph without periods. But to have that in a textbook is unforgivable.
2. Ambiguity: There is no tense in “下午有一个小朋友来我们家。”. Chinese is not a precise language and tense is very often not enforced. The reader is supposed to deduct the proper tense from context. But here, the ambiguity is quite bad. Within the previous context of Dad telling "me", it seems that Yunyun had already come to our house in the afternoon. Within the later context of "me" being happy, Yunyun is yet to come.
3. Ambiguity: 他 or 她? he or she? The usage of 他 (he) is not explained. In fact, a more natural dialog would be something like "谁来过?"/"谁会来?"("Who came?"/"Who is coming?") or quite simply "谁?" ("Who?").
   

It's not difficult to correct or avoid these simple problems. But having them present in the lesson shows a certain carelessness in the authors of this textbook.