3 or more consecutive rising falling tones

[Millner]

How would you pronounce a sentence with 3 consecutives rising and falling tones? I'm confused because lets say you have a sentence like: (1) 3 tone, (2) 3 tone, (3) 3 tone.

Do you usually pronounce it with 2 rising and the last falling rising OR... falling rising, rising, and then falling rising? And for that matter what about a sentence with 4 or 5 consecutive rising falling tones? Any help would be appreciated

[anonymoose]

This topic has been discussed several times before, so it might be worth doing a search.

There is no simple answer to your question. It depends specifically on what the words are. Generally, for a series of 3rd tone syllables which can be seen as a single unit, all but the last will become 2nd tones. However, if the series of 3rd tone syllables can be split into more than one unit, then the last syllable in each unit will retain its original 3rd tone. So what is a unit? Well, this is where it becomes tricky, because its a feeling that may vary from speaker to speaker, and therefore different people may pronounce the tones in different ways.

Take this sentence for example:

我也想给你五百把雨伞

wo ye xiang gei ni wu bai ba yu san

I also want to give you five hundred umbrellas

All the syllables in the above sentence are originally in the 3rd tone. I'm not a native speaker, but I suspect a native speaker would break the sentence up into units as follows:

我也想 • 给你 • 五百把 • 雨伞

which would give the following tones:

wo2 ye2 xiang3 • gei2 ni3 • wu2 bai2 ba3 • yu2 san3

Perhaps a native speaker would like to give further insight.

[Millner]

Thanks that post makes a lot of sense . All I need now is for some one else to verify it before I actually put it in use.

But let me see if I got it straight, IF it is a "fragment/section" you pronounce each of the former rising+falling syllables with a rising tone up until the very last 3rd syllable, AND IF you can conjure units based on how you word it (brief pauses) you break the sentence into smaller patterns of what was just described yes, no?

[renzhe]

Excellent example, which makes it obvious that you can't simply turn everything except the last syllable into a second tone.

[Flying Pigeon]

I'm using a book* that gives this example:

我也很好。

wó yě hén hǎo

For three consecutive third tones, I remember my teacher giving this example:

我很好。

wǒ hén hǎo

* The name of the book is テレビで中国語, published by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation).

I'll ask my girlfriend (native speaker) tomorrow.

[renzhe]

rising+falling

Do you mean the third tone? In that case, it's falling-rising.

AND IF you can conjure units based on how you word it (brief pauses) you break the sentence into smaller patterns of what was just described yes, no?

It's not that you conjure units, as much as some characters form meaningful units together.

[jiangping]

Umm, yeah, that's an interesting one... with something like 我很好 I'd probably say it:

我 "3rd tone", but actually it doesn't complete the rising part (because 很 is in 2nd tone),

很 2nd tone,

好 full 3rd tone.

I have no idea if this is correct though While there are tone "rules", I think it's pretty dependant on the prosody and context of the utterance.

Edit: Okay, I just did some experimenting... If i say: 我也很好 then the tones are:

我 2nd tone,

也 clipped 3rd tone (without the full rising part)....although it's not very emphasised.

很 2nd tone,

好 full 3rd tone.

That's pretty interesting... although again I'm not a native speaker so this isn't trustworthy:mrgreen:

Edited June 6, 2009 at 06:25 PM by jiangping

[Millner]

yea sorry renzhe, I meant that.

I think I get it now since some words have that automatic "intuitive" feel that the tones should be changed or left alone to make optimal sense i.e. wó yě hén hǎo. or

wo2 ye2 xiang3 • gei2 ni3 • wu2 bai2 ba3 • yu2 san3

Jiangping I agree that if I don't focus on these 2 tones, that things will come out clear kind of naturally but it irkes me sometimes when I don't know if I'm doing it right or wrong.

[xiaojiang216]

How about this one? "以己养养鸟也，非以鸟养养鸟也"

[Millner]

Don't know if this is right but I'll give it a shot! 以己养养鸟也，非以鸟养养鸟也" Yi2. yi3. ji2. yang2. yang3. niao3. ye3. fei1. yi2. yi3. niao3. yang2. yang3. niao2. ye3.

[xiaojiang216]

What about "yi3 ji2 yang3 yang3 niao2 ye3, fei1 yi3 niao2 yang3 yang3 niao2 ye3"?

[semantic nuance]

我也想 • 给你 • 五百把 • 雨伞

which would give the following tones:

wo2 ye2 xiang3 • gei2 ni3 • wu2 bai2 ba3 • yu2 san3

Perhaps a native speaker would like to give further insight.

Yours is correct. But there's another possibility:

我• 也想 • 给你 • 五百把 • 雨伞

wo3• ye2 xiang3 • gei2 ni3 • wu2 bai2 ba3 • yu2 san3

Hope it helps!

Edited June 10, 2009 at 12:54 AM by semantic nuance

[Millner]

Aww man... This stuff (and other things!) is too hard/confusing, I think I'm going to quit; 4 months of moderatly intense self study and still can't grasp basics!

Thanks for clarifying my inquiry though

[Don_Horhe]

Dude, don't give up, nothing comes easy. After only 4 months of study, no matter how intensive, you can't expect it all to make sense. It will, in time, suddenly "click" and you'll go "Hey, I GOT IT!"

[renzhe]

Aww man... This stuff (and other things!) is too hard/confusing, I think I'm going to quit; 4 months of moderatly intense self study and still can't grasp basics!

4 months is a very short time, and tone sandhi in complex sentences does not count as "basics".

I'd recommend getting the pronunciation right, learning the basic grammar, and lots of vocabulary (characters and words) at your level.

Once you have a basic vocabulary of about 1000 characters and a couple of thousand words, and enough grammar to put together conversational sentences, you can worry about tone sandhi, which is something that usually comes automatically with lots of listening.

[tooironic]

Indeed, this kind of stuff is nothing to worry about. I've been learning Chinese most my life and I've never even thought about such a thing to be honest. Nor has it ever really been a problem - after you've been speaking a while this kind of thing just comes naturally.

Anyway, it's not very often that you get more than, say, three 3rd tones in a row. (I'd say a sentence like 我也想给你五百把雨伞 is about as common as "She sells seashells by the seashore" in English). At any rate, I daresay you won't encounter anything like this in your beginning stage of learning. So, like, chill out.