Change of tone for "一“ yi1

[Mary112233]

Hello! 

 

I had a question about tone change when translating:

 

for the character "一" , the pinyin is (yi1). But when we say "一隻" it sounds like yi4zhi1. I've seen mixed feedback though for when you're writing pinyin, whether you should actually change it to yi4 or leave it as yi1. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!

 

 

[Jan Finster]

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/47280-when-does-一-change-tone/

[ZhuoMing]

What do you need to write in pinyin for?

 

The only time I ever had to write pinyin out was for a few quizzes when I took an Chinese Language introductory class in college, and I think my teacher preferred if we wrote out the tone changes to show that we know it. I think its probably generally better to write the correct tone as it would be pronounced, but I don't think there is any hard rule for this since nobody writes in pinyin, and it isn't too important since a Chinese person would never read pinyin.

[Demonic_Duck]

Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (Summary)

 

Quote

Only the original tones are indicated; tone sandhi is not indicated.

 

一隻 spelling: yī zhī, pronunciation: yì zhī

[Han Qiu Yan]

When written in the books or some texts, the tone change isn't written. You have to remember, that

yi + 1,2,3 tone characters= yi has 4th tone

一听，一家，一直

yi+ 4th tone characters= yi has 2nd tone 

一样，一看，一个

There are some exceptions, though.

In numbers we say it in first tone like 一二三四五

If means the first year, the first month (Jan), the first day of the month, then its pronounced in first tone, but if we say one year, one month (not the first), one day, then yi changes its tone according to the rules above. 

Also, when yi is with 第，then it doesnt change its tone, as 第一 means the first. 

hope this helps :))

[Apollys]

The standard way to write pinyin is to use the pre-tone-change pinyin.

 

However, many resources you will find write post-tone-change pinyin, which is why you may be confused.  Often people find post-tone-change pinyin more useful for teaching, especially when targeted at beginners.