Tone changes when in combination?

[Mike]

你好!

I'm new: I started learning chinese last week. So sorry if this is the umpteenth time that you have seen this question: I know, I should use the seach facility :-)

I know that bu4 + ke4 qi is pronounced bu2 ke4 qi, and

ni3 + hao3 + ma5 is pronounced ni2 hao3 ma5.

But I don't know why Xie4 + Xie4 is Xie4 Xie?

Can you suggest a site where all the rules for combining tones are set out with examples?

Xie4 xie ni2 de bang1 zhu4

Mike

[roddy]

the Xie4xie example isn't really a combination of tones - it's the 'loss' of a tone by the second syllable, which happens in certain words. It's more a convention (which, I'll bet, depends on circumstances and region) that certain final syllables become neutral.

Roddy

[gougou]

For more in-depth reading, try searching these forums for 'sandhi'.

Xie4 xie ni2 de bang1 zhu4

No changing necessary here, the ni3 stays third tone.

[Mike]

Thanks roddy and gougou.

Can someone tell me what the convention is with pinyin tone marks and numbers when in combination the pronunciation changes? Should I add tone marks or numbers to the word in the original form, as if it appeared on its own, or should I make the modification with the pinyin number or mark to indicate to the reader the actual pronunciation? Or, in practice will I see a combination of these approaches.

Hope that makes some sense - Thanks in advance.

Mike

[gougou]

Or, in practice will I see a combination of these approaches.

In practice, you won't see pinyin...

The only place where I read pinyin is in teaching materials, the largest part of which writes tone marks according to the pronounication in the sentence, not of the individual word.

For my own flash cards, I however prefer to use the pronounciation of the individual character. I find this helpful, because if you saw ni2 hao3 for the first time, you'd have no way of telling whether ni on its own was pronounced ni2 or ni3. When writing ni3 hao3, I know both the character's pronunciation and, per definition, the phrase's.

[skylee]

Can someone tell me what the convention is with pinyin tone marks and numbers when in combination the pronunciation changes?

Take a look at section 11 here -> http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html#x4.11

[HashiriKata]

Whatever rules there are, there are people who don't want to follow the rules.

The convention you're more likely to see in teaching materials is: original tone marks are used in the vocabulary listing or glossary; modified tone marks are used in the sentences or texts. This is a good way to let the reader know which is original and which is modified. Some (? well-behaved) writers even indicate that they follow this convention in the preface of the book.

[webmagnets]

Every book I have ever read says that you don't indicate the tone changes in a sentence. You just spell each word with tone markers as if the words were by themselves.

[atitarev]

Another rule, which is seldom followed is tone changes for 一 yī and 不 bù, many books and online resources do not show the changes or show them inconsistently. You need to know the rules and ignore the tone marks/numbers if they are incorrect.

BTW, some textbooks show tone marks above characters, not pinyin, which I also did for quite some time for myself. Zhuyin bopomofo (Taiwan) can also be accompanied by tone marks, they are the same as the ones used by Hanyu Piniyin.

[adrianlondon]

There aren't many rules for tone changes, as there aren't many circumstances in which they change. Luckily.

"bu" changes from 4 to 2 only infront of another 4.

3 changes to 2 only in front of another 3. And, these usually go in pairs, so a "33" goes to "23"; a "3333" goes to "2323" and a "333" goes to whatever sounds good out of "323" and "223" in my opinion :-)

Duplicated words tend to go to 1, so that the "man man" in "man man de" will go from "44" to "41".

As for "xiexie" - well, it just happens to be pronounced as "45" (5 being neutral) for no reason other than that's just the way it is. "xiexie" is a word meaning "thanks". You can't just say "xie" on its own in that context, so it doesn't follow the duplication rule above.

I'm also a learner, so before you take my word for it, wait for someone better than me to say I'm OK. Or wrong.

[L-F-J]

I've heard most duplicated words change the second word to neutral, as in ma1 ma5 and ba4 ba5. Although, in Taiwan they keep them both the same it seems.

[Laska]

In xiexie nide bangzhu, I think the third tone in "ni" becomes a 'half 3rd tone' because it is followed by a neutral tone (qingsheng). Have I got this right?

I believe a 3rd tone becomes a 2nd tone when followed by a 3rd tone. A 3rd tone becomes a half third tone (slight falling tone) when followed in combination with any other tone, including qingsheng. Examples: 我的, 你的, 暖和...

[L-F-J]

Some advice I was given: 不要管什么规则，在你能听懂普通话的前提下，尽量多地和中国人说话，慢慢地就你可以掌握声调了。