This has confused me for quite some time now and I feel that it always messes up my speech.
When there are multiple 3rd tones in a sentence how do you separate which tones change into a second tone due to the tone sandhi? Today I read this sentence"
我們有好幾種行程
Somehow changing the first 3rd tone into a second makes the sentence not sound quite right. For instance:
wo3men you2hao3ji2zhong3xing2cheng2
Should I separate the words based just on the individual words or do I have to consider the position of the word in the sentence?
This has confused me for quite some time now and I feel that it always messes up my speech.
When there are multiple 3rd tones in a sentence how do you separate which tones change into a second tone due to the tone sandhi? Today I read this sentence"
我們有好幾種行程
Somehow changing the first 3rd tone into a second makes the sentence not sound quite right. For instance:
wo3men you2hao3ji2zhong3xing2cheng2
Should I separate the words based just on the individual words or do I have to consider the position of the word in the sentence?
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Just say “hao3 duo1 zhong3” instead.
But the you3 would keep its full tone, as it’s not part of the following chunk of language (it’s the verb, the rest is the object) so a “boundary” for the sandhi would be there the way people tend to use it naturally.
wo3men5 you3 hao3 ji2(5) zhong3 xing2cheng2.
The “ji” is such a small (and non-content) word that it tends to get short-changed in the tone and emphasis department.
The above is what is natural to me to say, anyway – I’m not a native speaker. This is how I would teach it, though (if I were going to teach it, which I wouldn’t – the reason you have this particular sandhi rule is that it’s a natural thing for your throat to do in protest to having so many low tones together.)
i tend to say the first two words in hao3ji2zhong3 in syllables a tiny bit shorter, and they not really separated. If i really stop and think about it, sometimes it sounds a little like hao3jizhong3, hao2ji2zhong3. Since the syllables are a tiny bit shorter, it’s not really easy to notice which tone the second character is. But I think the first one is the “correct” Taiwanese way.
Yes, if you’re speaking native speed, I think the you3 would tend to go to you2.
Most students aren’t, which is why I was thinking of “imposing” the boundary in this case.
Surely the third tone on you3 drops down into an incomplete third tone (one that does not rise back up before hao3. But you need to focus on how native speakers pronounce chunks of sentences without imposing your own usually incorrect ideas on how the tones should operate based on the rules.
The rules are operative and are important. Learn them. But don’t focus on them too much at this stage when producing them. Try to account for what you hear accurately, but don’t insist on applying them. It will all make sense later. This a non-problem.
I say this with all love and respect to you: why does this haunt you?
This is like someone who hasn’t yet memorized the English alphabet worrying about when Shakespeare used “zounds” in a sentence.
I can only conclude that some teacher somewhere has brainwashed his or her students into believing this is crucial.
Theoretically, in this case, the key would probably be the “word boundary” between “library” and “inside”, which might keep the “guan3” and make the “li3” neutral tone, or keep it 3rd. I think in the PRC it would be neutral tone, eliminating all the fuss in the first place.
“hao ji ___” is a common phrase and pronouncing it any other way than “hao2 ji3 ___” just sounds odd to me, regardless of the following tone. Then again, my Chinese is objectively terrible.
