The third tone, Possibilities

[iMeng@Meng]

I know when you have a third and a third such as 你好 you do ni as a second tone but for me I have a problem catching that in longer phrases like 我给你一本词典

So could I do the inverse and pronounce the first 3rd tone as a mid third then the second 3rd tone as a 2nd?

Also I am self studying the HSK1 what activities do you suggest I do to remember my hanzi other than flash cards.

And also (I know I keep rambling sorry) How many times would you repeat writing a Hanzi?

10-20 times? What do you suggest! 谢谢你 in advance

[WestTexas]

Repeatedly writing a character is a waste of time IMO. If you are going to repeat writing it, you should be writing one time at different intervals (ala spaced repetition) and not just 20 times in one day. I know its the traditional way to study but modern psychology would suggest its not a particularly efficient method.

[外国赤佬]

I think most learners would agree that it's much more useful to break a character into its components and learn it that way. You can look up its origin in any of the numerous etymology dictionaries available online (e.g. 家: having a pig 豕 under the roof 宀 makes a home) or just make up your own story, anything that helps you to remember it.

[winnerin2009]

Yeah, in your case, you should pronounce "我给你" like "wǒ géi nǐ" (the first "wǒ" is a mid-third tone).

But not all the situation is similar with this. In Chinese, the different variations with several third-tone syllables combined together can help people tell the grammatical meaning. Another example, "展览馆" (which means exhibition center) must pronounced as "zhán lán guǎn", but never pronounced as "zhǎn lán guǎn" (the first third-tone is mid-third). Because "展览馆" is made up with "展览" (exhibition) and “馆” (center). If you pronounced as "zhǎn lán guǎn", it sounds like your meaning is divided with "展" and "览馆", so the Chinese native speaker would feel really strange.

But anyway, no matter how to pronounce, when you are asked to give pinyins on certain words, you MUST write as its origin sound. Which means you should write the pinyin of “我给你” as "wǒ gěi nǐ" and “展览馆” as "zhǎn lǎn guǎn".