跑着跑着 and 走着走着

[edelweis]

How should I pronounce these?

(from the books 330 Chinese patterns)

I tend to say 跑着跑着 pao2zhe5 pao3zhe5 and 走着走着 zou3zhe5 zou3zhe5 not sure why...

[蓝鸟]

跑着跑着 pao2zhe5 pao3zhe5 and 走着走着 zou3zhe5 zou3zhe5 is correct... "着" just indicates the duration of a movement and has the 5th tone here.

[somethingfunny]

Surely pao3zhe5 pao3zhe5? If you said pao2zhe5 pao2zhe5 I'd probably think you were making tea. 

[艾墨本]

Sounds like you might be cutting a 半三声 short. The core of it is that drop to the bottom of your throat of a third tone. The sensation when paired with a neutral tone is like a stress and then relaxing of the throat.

 

try listening to some recordings of third tones in different position, the stress that makes it clear it’s a third tone is that drop at the bottom rather than the rising and falling. 

 

A very 标准 two third tones where the first turns to a second is actually the first starting from the throat drop and then rising a bit rather than an actual second tone.My first guess of why you’d fall into a second tone is that you are emphasizing the rise and fall instead.

 

Another aspect is that a neutral tone that follows a third tone will be at the “5” (where one is low like at the end of fourth tone and five is high like the end of second tone). This is why I mention the relaxing sensation. Going from the low end of a third to a neutral high requires a quick retraction and relaxation to get between the two.

[imron]

7 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

If you said pao2zhe5 pao2zhe5 I'd probably think you were making tea. 

But upside down.

[陳德聰]

鞄著鞄著

[蓝鸟]

Sorry, I only paid attention to the tone of 着, which is correctly read as the 5th tone. 跑 has the third tone, so 跑着跑着 should be pao3 zhe5 pao3 zhe5.

[艾墨本]

@蓝鸟 That'll be much easier to fix.

 

Side note, edited way too many spelling mistakes out of my post. Sorry for any confusion that may have caused.

[edelweis]

Thank you all for the answers. So I'll take care to keep the 3rd tones in these sentences.